


Tympani

by demotu



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Anal Play, Coming Untouched, Dildos, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, M/M, Masturbation, Mild Internalized Homophobia, Multiple Orgasms, Prostate Milking, Sex Toys, Sexual exploration, Top!Patrick, bottom!Jonny, buddyfucking, mild sexuality crisis, oversensitivity, talking about sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 16:50:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 45,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3418250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demotu/pseuds/demotu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jonny’s prostate is a gift from the gods. Patrick’s patience, also.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tympani

**Author's Note:**

> This is all coggs' fault. She showed me this old reddit post entitled [I [23m] just discovered prostate stimulation... and I prefer it to sex with my GF. Like, by a lot. Help?](http://www.reddit.com/r/sex/comments/17c8oa/i_23m_just_discovered_prostate_stimulation_and_i), and obviously, obviously I had to write this story with Jonny. A couple months later and it is not the porny oneshot I had anticipated, but oh my god is it ever a lot of porn. 
> 
> Thanks to coggs for her eternal patience and piles of inspiration (porn croooones) and going through and telling me to cut shit and let my jokes be jokes
> 
> As always, fourfreedoms put her back into it and dragged me through the emotional narrative (THERE IS ONE?) and went through it line-by-line to get it into posting shape while I was going batty with moving and staring at this too damn long.
> 
> Warning for: idiots. _Idiots._
> 
> Other warning for: surprise fingering without any prior discussion.

Jonny likes blow jobs. He’s a guy. He’s got a dick. Of course he likes blow jobs. He can’t come from them, needs the tighter pressure and steadier stroke of a hand or a pussy to push him over the edge, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t enjoy the process. The girl he picked up after a win in LA, Steph, definitely is into it, licking his balls and letting spit drip everywhere. She’s not shy about letting her mouth wander, tonguing at his foreskin and slit and licking at her fingers where they’re wrapped prettily around Jonny’s cock.

“Nice,” Jonny says appreciatively.

Steph grins up at him, plush lower lip rubbing against the tip of his cock, and then moves her hand to slide her mouth down instead. Shit, that looks good; she’s lying on her stomach, propped on her elbows between his legs, and he’s got a great view down her back to her fantastic ass. He’s justifiably distracted by the whole tableau, too into it to notice exactly where she’d moved her hand until a finger pushes against his asshole and _in_.

“Ho—shit,” Jonny says, thighs tensing in surprise as she pushes in deeper.

He has every intention of saying ‘what the fuck, stop,’ because _dude_ , that’s just rude. He’d never stick anything up a lady’s ass without asking first. And he’d sure as hell never say _yes_ if a girl asked _him_ , because that’s just—ugh. Gross. He’s going to tell Steph to quit it and finish himself off because he’s going to be pissed about it and it will be awkward and, and—

None of that happens. Instead, the sensation of her mouth sucking at the head of his cock disappears underneath a brilliant rush through his skin. His scalp prickles hot. His spine feels like it’s being tickled from the inside-out. The soles of his feet where they’re rubbing against the bed arc with a pleasure so pure his thighs shake. Jonny’s balls draw up into tight knots as he arches his back, hips coming full off the bed as he stuffs the base of his thumb into his mouth and _bites_ , muffling the wail that’s torn out of his throat as he comes in shuddering pulses so violent Steph can’t keep her mouth on him.

“Oh wow,” he hears her saying from far away, leagues and leagues from where he’s trembling and sinking into a post-orgasmic stupor so deep he’s not sure he remembers how to draw breath, not sure that he'll ever need to again.

“What?” he gasps out, thin from the emptiness of his lungs. His hand is still on his mouth, tongue lapping at the salty skin. He drops it to his side in an uncontrolled thwack and finally inhales. That was—Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.

Jonny doesn’t remember the rest of their conversation. He thinks he falls asleep before she’s left the hotel room. Half of him is drowsily glad he got her off first and didn’t completely disgrace himself; the other half is pissed, because that was _not polite_ and she definitely deserved to be left hanging.

 

~

 

“Wait,” Patrick says, stabbing the air between them with his fork. “Hold up. This chick gives you the orgasm of your life and you’re _angry_ at her?”

“ _Shh_ ,” Jonny says in a sharp hiss, glancing out of their booth. They’re tucked in the corner of a diner near the hotel, dull pink pleather seats clashing horribly with the lacquered red tables.

“Los Angeles, man,” Patrick says, twirling the fork and then lowering it to stab a neat set of three home fries, one per tine. “Nobody cares.”

“ _I_ care,” Jonny says, hunched over his coffee. “I thought you’d be more understanding, what the hell?”

“Because I’m gay?” Patrick says, giving Jonny the look that’s stood in for ‘not your token gay friend, Toews’ since they were twenty-four and Pat came out to him. Six years later and Jonny doesn’t stick his foot in it anymore. Mostly.

“No, asshole. Because you’re always the one going on about how not all gay guys like getting fucked. And I’m not even gay, so that shouldn’t even have been _good_.”

Patrick blinks. He pulls off the home fries with his teeth, one by one, chews, swallows, sets his fork on the plate, picks up his orange juice, takes a long, long sip, puts it back down, and picks up his fork again. This time he twirls it in his fingers and stares at Jonny, infuriatingly blank-faced.

“Are you finished?” Jonny asks.

“Nah,” Patrick says. “I’m compiling a list.”

“A list of what?” Jonny says, wary.

“How many ways I can call you a fuckhead in English, French, German, and Swedish.”

“You don’t speak French,” Jonny points out. “Or any of those. Except English, sort of.”

“I speak all the important words,” Patrick says sagely and then breaks his straight face with a snort, putting his fork down and leaning back into the bench. “You are a fucking idiot, Jonny. You actually think the only people in the world who get off from prostate stimulation are gay guys who bottom?”

Jonny opens his mouth, closes it. He groans, and puts his elbows on the table and his face in his hand and ignores the fact that one of his elbows is in his toast. At least he hadn’t buttered it yet. “When you put it that way,” he says, muffled.

“Is that a bite mark?” Patrick says, fascinated. Jonny straightens up and glances at the precise circle of bruises around the ball of his thumb. He puts his hands in his laps, flushing a furious red as Patrick adds, “Wow.”

“Forget it,” Jonny says tightly, neck prickling uncomfortably. “Just—forget I ever said anything.”

“Okay,” Patrick says mildly.

Jonny looks at him suspiciously as Patrick goes back to his methodical home fry plate-clearing technique. That was definitely too easy.

 

~

 

Jonny gets a text a from Patrick week later on the morning of an off day. It says _start small_. Jonny frowns and ignores it, but when a delivery woman shows up with a package for him and Jonny opens it on his dining room table, he ends up scrambling for his phone to reply.

_what the fucking fuck_

_have fun!!!_ Patrick texts back after a couple of minutes of Jonny staring furiously at his phone, trying not to let his eyes dart over to the open box. _And seriously, START SMALL._

Jonny’s first thought it to throw everything in the garbage. His second is to package it back up and ship it to Patrick, only ℅ the Hawks so it comes in with the fanmail. His third is _nothing looks small._

He pokes warily at the packaging of the trio of dildos on top and calls Patrick.

“That was fast,” Patrick chirps when he picks up.

“You’re an asshole,” Jonny says flatly. “What the hell is all this?”

“A carefully curated selection of sex toys for your butt-exploring-pleasure,” Patrick says, far too pleased with himself.

“I don’t _want_ to explore my butt,” Jonny says plaintively, slowly unpacking the box and laying everything out in a row. Along with the three-pack of dildos, there’s a thick, stocky vibtrator, a slim (but still _not fucking small_ ) curved dildo with a whole bunch of bumps along it, and this crazy u-shaped one that Jonny doesn’t get how it goes, like, in, and an assortment of butt plugs in various sizes, colours, and materials. Patrick’s also tossed in four kinds of lube and some—Christ, are those anal beads?

Jonny drops the package on the table with a thunk and sits down in the chair next to it. “I want to have sex with girls,” he whines.

“Yes, Jonny,” Patrick says patiently. “That’s why I’m giving you fake dicks and not offering you a real one.”

“Also because Nico might object,” Jonny says before he thinks the better of it, and then bites hard on his lip, because no, wanting to have sex with women is definitely the bigger reason here.

“Eh,” Patrick says. “We’re not serious. He’d definitely question my taste and judgement, though.”

“Fuck you, my ass is gay catnip,” Jonny says, quoting the Nico in question and immediately regretting it when Patrick goes off in peals of laughter.

“Jonny, Jon, Tazer,” Patrick says, gasping for air. “I love you so much, you know that, right?”

Jonny makes a small grunt of acknowledgement, the awkward twist of embarrassment in his gut easing at the words. Even before they were well-and-truly _friends_ , not just teammates with intensely intertwined paths, they held each others’ confidences. He trusted Patrick enough to sob on his shoulder at twenty-four about the possibility his head would never get better, and Patrick trusted him in turn to keep his sexuality a secret a year before he came out to the world. Confessing to him that his ass is gayer than his brain is not in the same league as those things. He loves the jerk, would do anything for him. The feeling is mutual—up to and including buying several hundred dollars worth of sex toys.

“Then believe me when I say you owe it to yourself to give this a try. If it was as good as you said, with one chick’s finger? Dude,” Patrick says, sounding genuinely awed, “that is a _gift_. Don’t waste it.”

“You don’t even like it,” Jonny points out. “How is that fair? You’re actually gay.”

Patrick groans, now sounding genuinely annoyed. Jonny goes red, happy that their conversation is over the phone.

“How many times do I have to say that doesn’t have anything to do with it?” Patrick says. “Listen, you want to ignore it, fine. Be ignorant about your own body. At least I’ve tried it, at least I’ve figured out what I genuinely like, instead of assumed I should fuck a certain way because of who I fuck or how I look or what I do with my life.”

“Sorry,” Jonny mumbles.

Patrick sighs. “It’s fine. I just—sorry if the package freaked you out. I really only wanted to help.”

Jonny lets out a weak chuckle and offers back, “Sorry. I was just surprised. By the. Uh. Package.”

Patrick huffs, the breath staticky across the line. “Yeah. Shove it in the closet—don’t say it—if you don’t want to now. But think about it, okay?”

“I can do that,” Jonny says, straightening up. “Visualization exercises, eh?”

“You got it, buddy,” Patrick drawls. Jonny can practically see him rolling his eyes over the phone. “Just start small, okay?”

“Got that the first two times,” Jonny says, glancing at the array of packaged dildos on the table.

After they hang up, Jonny finds himself annoyed that Patrick would doubt his ability to—to take it, or whatever. C’mon, it’s not like any of them are monster dicks, and Jonny’s an athlete. He can push through anything.

 

~

 

He most definitely cannot take it. He almost cries the first time he tries to get the biggest vibe—it promises thrusting action and a curve designed for optimal prostate stimulation—up his ass. Jonny never gets it deep enough to turn the damned thing on and find out if the package lied.

“More lube,” Patrick says when Jonny confesses in the weight room the next day, wincing through his squats. “And for the love of god—”

“—start small, yeah, yeah,” Jonny says. He picks up another pair of twenty-pound plates and then thinks the better of it, staring blankly at the weight rack. “I got it, I got it.”

"Also, when you get there?" Patrick says, taking the plates from Jonny and adding them to his own barbell. "The package didn't even lie."

Jonny swallows and thinks hard about how that's not at all an incentive. 

He watches Patrick get set up under the bar, shoulders bunching and forearms flexing as he adjusts his grip. “You got plans for your birthday yet?” Jonny asks.

They’re in Chicago for it this year, flying out for the Circus Trip the next morning. Jonny’s not a birthday person—at the end of April the last thing he ever wants to think about is getting older—but Patrick likes celebrating his, no matter how inconveniently scheduled. Jonny thinks it has to do with always having been so young as a kid. Getting older has always been a positive, for Patrick.

“Not really,” Patrick says, stepping out of the rack with a huff, balancing the weight and then starting his reps.

Jonny straddles the bench across from Patrick and watches with a lazily critical eye. “Don’t cheat,” he says when Patrick pauses at the top of a set.

“Am not,” Patrick grunts, shifting his grip and starting back up.

“Get to the bottom, then,” Jonny shoots back. Patrick glares but does his reps with perfect technique, and Jonny gives him a sarcastic thumbs up. “I can set something up. You wanna pick a place?”

“Go for it,” Patrick says, teeth clenched as he pushes through the last set and then steps back into the rack. “Low key, I don’t wanna be out late before we fly.”

“Okay, old man,” Jonny says, smirking. “Is your family gonna be in town?”

Patrick rolls out his shoulders and steps around the rack to unload the weights. “I think so. Dad asked for tickets for the night before.”

“You want me to find out for sure?” Jonny offers, expecting Patrick's head shake. "Alright, just let me know who you want there."

"Don't ask Nico," Patrick warns.

“Because of your family?” Jonny says, startled. It’s true that Jonny’s never seen Patrick introduce a guy to his parents, but Nico’s lasted longer than any of Patrick’s other hook-ups. It’s been months, surely everybody can get over themselves for a dinner.

“Because he won’t want to be there any more than I want him there,” Patrick says shortly, dropping the last plate onto the rack with a clang.

“If that’s what you want,” Jonny says, gnawing on the inside of his cheek.

Patrick lets out a breath of air and hits Jonny on the shoulder. “Don’t give me that look.”

“I’m not giving you a look,” Jonny protests. “I just think…”

“What?” Patrick says flatly, dropping down onto the bench next to Jonny.

“It’s not my business,” Jonny says, pulling his leg over the bench and turning to face Patrick.

“That has never stopped you before in your _life_ ,” Patrick says.

“I can back off,” Jonny says, holding up his hands.

“You really can’t,” Patrick says, his eyes crinkled up in the corners. “But I’m used to it by now. You think I should bring Nico to meet my parents _why_?”

“I don’t get why you’re still protecting them from this,” Jonny says, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “They’re not gonna get used to it if they never see it.”

Patrick runs his hands through his hair, letting out a long, slow breath while Jonny folds his hands together, watching him carefully. “You know I’m right,” he adds quietly.

“Maybe,” Patrick admits, digging his thumb into his neck. “They wanna forget and it’s easier if I let them. It’s not like I want to talk to them about my sex life.”

“There’s a middle ground between telling them about what you do with your dick and pretending you don’t have one,” Jonny says.

“Oh, go fuck yourself,” Patrick says, kicking Jonny in the shin. “As if you tell your parents about your actual girlfriends.”

“That’s true,” Jonny admits, pushing to his feet with a groan. Shit, he really did overdo it. “And I’m working on it.”

“Working on what?” Patrick says.

“Fucking myself,” Jonny offers.

Patrick barks out a laugh like Jonny hoped he would. Jonny squeezes his shoulder once again before letting go. “No Nico at the party, got it,” he says lightly.

“Thanks,” Patrick says, shoulders dropping. “And Jon—when there’s somebody who matters, my parents will have to figure out how to deal. I’m just not there yet, okay?”

“For sure,” Jonny says and follows him towards the showers.

 

~

 

The slim purple dildo is not much wider than Jonny’s finger, though probably as thick as a couple of Steph’s at the biggest nubs. It’s got a slight bend in the middle, which from his anatomical googling is gonna be helpful, especially if Jonny’s doing this himself.

The whole set-up is the most awkward part, really. He keeps flipping back and forth between kneeling, face in a pillow and arm twisted behind him, and lying on his back with his hand between his legs, knees folded up awkwardly beside him. Neither position feels great, but it’s an easier reach on his back so he finally goes with that, tucking a pillow under his hips to fold himself up.

The first touch of cool plastic to his hole makes him flinch and tighten up, muscle twitching against the light drag of silicone through lube. There’s sweat beading at his temples and his legs are trembling. He digs the fingers of his free hand into the tense muscle at the back of his thigh to steady himself. His dick is soft, hiding under pale, shriveled foreskin. It’s the least turned-on Jonny has ever felt in his life. Nothing about this is arousing, and when Jonny closes his eyes and tries to picture a hot chick doing this instead, his stomach turns over in ugly, shameful disgust.

Jonny lets his legs fall back to the bed, heels resting on the mattress and dildo slipping from between his crack. He palms his forehead, wiping it dry. Why the fuck is he trying this? It felt good one time, it’s not like he’s ever going to need to do it again. Even if he _was_ gay, he wouldn’t need to stick anything up his ass. Last time it felt like he was trying to tear himself a new asshole, for fuck’s sake.

Jonny makes a raw sound and rolls over to his front, anger sliding up his throat and making his eyes sting. He presses his face into his pillow and lets out a muffled shout of frustration. He’s pissed off that Patrick’s been pushing this at him so hard—Patrick doesn’t even get off on it himself, why the fuck does he think Jonny should?

But. Patrick does, you know. Do it to other guys.

And makes them like it, if the parade of bros through his condo over the past few years is any indication. So maybe Patrick’s own ass is a restricted zone, but clearly, _clearly_ there’s something good about the whole thing. And that blow-job, fuck. Jonny wants to feel that again, as terrifying as it was in the moment. He’d come with a ferocity he’d thought reserved for women in squirting porn clips.

Now Jonny’s getting hard, dick swelling uncomfortably under his hip. He shifts, resettling it under his stomach and humping the bed in small thrusts of his hips. Maybe if he gets himself worked up in a good way, first, it will go better.

He pushes his forehead into the pillow and grinds against the bed, his dick thickening and sliding easily in his foreskin. The chill from his cold sweat disappears, replaced by the flush of arousal. He presses one hand to the headboard, something firm to push back against, the other clenching and releasing around the dildo.

When he parts his thighs and slides the dildo back into place, it’s warm from his hand. Jonny lets it rest between his cheeks, slipping and pressing against his hole as he clenches and fucks down against the bed. He’s got a good rhythm going now, pulling his hips right up with the strength of the muscles in his back, a counterpoint to the flex of his abs and glutes on each thrust down. It’s more like sex, desirable instead of repulsive, good enough for him to shift his grip on the base of the dildo and _push_.

The tip slides in. Jonny yelps, teeth clenching down on the pillowcase. His hips freeze, ass tilted up, arm trembling. He sucks in a long breath and on the exhale, works the dildo in deeper. He grinds down again, letting the tip slip nearly all the way out, and then pushed it in until the first bulb catches on his rim and goes with a pop.

“Fuck,” he mumbles, shivering. He’s turned on, still, heavy cock sliding against bedspread, but his asshole mostly feels weird. It doesn’t hurt, not like last time, so he takes a gulping breath and works in deeper, twisting his wrist to try to get the angle—

“Oh holy shit,” spills out of him, words bizarrely precise as his head snaps up in shock. “Oh fuck, oh fu—” He drags his free arm under his chest and shoves hard, rearing back onto his knees. The dildo slides deeper, twisting wrong. He whines in his throat, changes his grip, and yells, bucking back onto his own hand. The sensation is electric, sizzling through him and making him twitch and shake, that scalp-to-toes burn enveloping him completely as his heart thumps through his chest like he’s at the end of the VO2 max test.

“Calisse d’ostie, _tabernak_ ,” Jonny hears himself saying; he hasn’t sworn regularly in French since middle school but fifteen years of his life fall away under the erratic slide of silicone over his prostate. His head drops between his shoulders and he watches as the head of his dick goes from swollen red to purple, dripping thick globs of precum like he’s never seen in his entire life. He whines high in his throat and shoves at the dildo, hand fisted desperately around the base, and comes in thick ropey spurts that shoot so far they catch his open, panting mouth.

When his body finally stops spasming enough for him to collapse to the bed, wrecked like he’s been driven into the boards, his first clear thought is that swallowing was definitely an accident.

 

~

 

“Jesus,” Patrick says, flopped sideways in his favourite armchair at Jonny’s. His gaze darts to Jonny’s bedroom door and then back to his face. “Just from that?”

Jonny chugs the rest of his beer and sinks deeper into the couch. “Just?” he says, voice high-pitched and skin crawling with a frantic buzz. “Just? It was like being _concussed,_ Kaner. I honestly thought I was going to vomit.”

“So it was bad,” Patrick says, lip curling up.

Jonny shakes his head violently. “No, fuck. It was an orgasm, it wasn’t _bad_. Just the most intense thing I’ve ever felt.”

Patrick’s mouth is open, tongue pushing absently at his lower lip as he stares at Jonny. Jonny tosses a throw cushion at him; it bounces off Patrick’s head before he lifts a hand.

Patrick shakes himself and runs his belated hand through his hair. “So you uh, aren’t going to do it again?”

“Well,” Jonny says.

Patrick’s dazed look disappears in favour of a delighted grin. “You already did!”

Jonny shifts subtly on the couch, flushing.

It’s not subtle enough. Patrick looks down at his crotch (jeans jeans jeans Jonny is not dumb even if Patrick showed up unannounced this morning) and Jonny’s whole body goes prickly-hot with embarrassment. It’s like Patrick can see right through his clothes to where the base of the plug is pushing uncomfortably between his cheeks.

“You, are you—actually?” Patrick says, the tips of his ears going pink. Jonny tilts his head, fascinated. Patrick never blushes. “No way.”

“It’s an off day,” Jonny says, rubbing his thumb across the wet neck of the bottle in tiny, nervous strokes. “And you didn’t tell me you were coming!”

“Right,” Patrick says faintly. “I, um. Should go, then.” He climbs to his feet, reaching over to collect the empties on the table. Jonny shakes his head.

“Nah, whatever. It’s not doing much anyway.”

Patrick stills and turns his head towards him, ears still rimmed red. “It’s…not?”

“Maybe it’s too small,” Jonny says, straight-faced. “I did follow your instructions.”

Patrick stares at him, frozen in his half-bent position, and then straightens up slowly. “You,” he says, “are an asshole. And a cock-tease. Who knows exactly what he’s doing, you _asshole_.”

Jonny laughs, a deep, full-body thing that makes him clench around the plug. That he can feel, his cock twitching in his jeans, and he reaches down carelessly to adjust himself.

Patrick lets out a caught sound, then makes another grab for the empties. This one is successful, and he leaves for the kitchen mumbling about douchebag straight, exhibitionist team captains.

 

~

 

Okay, so the butt plug thing was funny, but it honestly didn’t do much for Jonny. The sensation of the plug snugged up in his hole doesn’t feel half as good as the admittedly arrhythmic—his technique needs work, no doubt—thrusts of the little dildo inside him. Just sitting there all stretched out and occasionally getting a jolt when he shifts isn’t half as interesting as getting, well. Penetrated. _Fucked_.

He takes the butt plug out after Patrick leaves and pulls the box of toys out from under his bed, contemplating. He could try a bigger plug, but even the next one up is intimidating at the widest part, the bulbous curve thicker than three of his fingers, so he grabs the mid-sized dildo of the three-set instead. It’s longer and thicker than the first one he tried, but smooth and silky and hardly curved at all, so hopefully it’ll be easier to get in right.

His dick gets hard in anticipation and he doesn’t bother trying to fuck the bed. He splays his legs and stares up at the ceiling and pushes in with a shaking hand, biting down on his cheek at the stretch of his hole around the slick tip. Jonny doesn’t like this part at all, his brain flashing with with instinctive rejection. His muscles lock up against the desire to close his legs and buck away from the invasion, but he holds his breath and keeps pressing until the dildo pushes in deep enough to drag against his prostate.

He groans, sound rumbling through his chest, skin goose pimpling everywhere, the tiny hairs along his body standing up straight. His legs shake and he hooks an elbow behind one knee, hauling it back against his chest, the dildo sliding all the way back out. He fumbles, pressing the dildo back in. The groan spirals up into a whine, a needy, filthy little sound.

The dildo bumps up against his prostate again and Jonny yelps. His dick leaps off his belly and bounces back with a smack. He sucks in a deep breath and holds it, keeping the dildo as steady as he can in his trembling state.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” he chants, trying desperately to hold off. He wants to take stock, but oh god, he can’t stop the little twitches of his wrist that shove the dildo further inside.

He lifts his head and stares down at his dick. His balls are pulled up tight around the base; they feel like ice, frosty with terror at the coming rush. His cock is so hard his foreskin’s fully retracted, frenulum stretched tight below the deep red head.

He pulls the dildo back and pushes in firmly, breath locked up in his chest. Fluid pours out of the tip of his cock and onto his belly, pooling in the tense crevices of his abs. Another flex of his wrist, and oh _fuck_ , it’s like coming but he’s not, not quite. It’s not that explosive rush but instead this full-body throb that lights up his dick and pushes out more precum in dribbling jerks.

He gasps, dizzy from holding his breath. His hole clenches tight. The pressure together with the sudden oxygen makes for critical mass. The bed drops away, the ceiling melts from his sight and the walls of his bedroom fly apart as his balls throb in endless pulsations, pushing jets of come through the rigid iron of his dick.

It’s even better than before, his perception of time melting along with his spine. He drops his leg, drops the dildo, grabs the bedspread and holds on through the wildest orgasm of his life.

At his own god-damned hand, on a dildo Patrick Fucking Kane bought him.

He’s still stuck on that thought, chest painted with white and softening dick resting in the sticky mess on his stomach, when he realizes the dildo’s shoved all the way inside, the whole length of it up his ass. He straightens his legs experimentally, ass flexing against the mattress. The dildo shifts inside him, flat base tucked up against his cheeks like the much shorter plug. He shuts his eyes, letting go of all the air in his chest in a slow, relaxing exhale. He rocks his hips, curling up and then pushing his ass back into the bed. The dildo slides and pushes and that’s—kind of good.

It’s also a lot on his body, so he rolls over and pulls it out, shivery licks darting up his spine as it pops free. He blinks, dizzy, and collapses back to the bed to fall asleep. Something to consider next time.

 

~

 

Jonny does recognize that it’s a little bit cruel to keep recounting his experiments to Patrick. It’s _fun_ , though, watching Patrick’s eyes glaze over and ears pink up. Jonny figures if he’s out of line, Patrick will do what he usually does and tell Jonny to fuck right off. He never does, though, instead asks questions with a disinterested tone. That’s a lie, though, because he never bothers to hide the boners that spring up during their conversations. Jonny figures it’s a fair trade: he gets to benefit from Patrick’s superior knowledge in exchange for handing Patrick jerk-off material. Everybody wins.

“So it’s normal?” Jonny says, leaning over his plate to eat his massive, dripping burrito.

“The precum?” Patrick asks, nose wrinkling up.

“S’not ‘eally,” Jonny says, mouth full. He chews and swallows and tries again. “It’s not really precum, I don’t think? That was always clear, this is actually thick and white. But before I get off, and it doesn’t, you know.” He makes an abstract gesture, illustrating the shooting of jizz with the help of his burrito.

Patrick presses his mouth closed and sucks on his tongue in a transparent effort not to laugh. His voice is strangled when he says, “Oh, I see. Milking.”

“What?” Jonny says.

“Prostate milking?” Patrick says, licking juice off his fingers and scraping up the fallen bits of burrito off his plate. “You’re basically pushing come out by pressing on your prostate. Doesn’t happen with most guys.”

“Oh,” Jonny says. “That’s weird.”

Patrick shifts a shoulder and leans back in his chair. “Does it feel good?”

“Oh yeah,” Jonny says absently, picturing it. That fits, he thinks. “It all does. Well, except…”

“Except?” Patrick prods.

It’s Jonny’s turn to blush. “I uh, it’s hard to start?” he tries, cheeks warming as Patrick cocks his head at him. “The...entry. Getting warmed up? It still freaks me out. Once it’s in there, it’s all good.” Patrick makes a small, nasal sound, and Jonny levels him with a frown. “What?”

“Nothing,” Patrick says hastily.

“Kaner,” Jonny says, putting his burrito down and leaning in. Patrick makes a face and looks away. “C’mon, I’m baring my soul here. Don’t leave me hanging.”

“Welllll,” Patrick draws out. “That’s my favourite part, that’s all.”

Jonny blinks, sits back. “The...like, pushing in?” That makes sense, that part’s always a trip with girls, but Patrick shakes his head.

“No. Well, that's great too,” he says. “When I'm fucking a guy. But when I'm not, the...getting warmed up bit is good. Getting my ass played with.” His voice ends up kind of strangled at the end of the sentence, which Jonny thinks is kind of unfair, given how many horrifically private things he’s told Patrick about his own sex life. Patrick has no right to be the mortified one in this conversation.

“I thought you didn’t bottom,” he says.

“I don’t like to get _fucked_ ,” Patrick says. The pink has now migrated to his cheekbones, dusting the arches rosy red. “The rest of it is cool.”

Jonny shoots him a skeptical expression.

Patrick laughs, slumping back into his chair and raising his hands, palms up. “I’ll grant you, it’s hard to do to yourself. But I bet if you had somebody messing around down there, getting you good and ready,” his voice catches and he clears his throat, “then you’d be into the whole process.”

“Maybe,” Jonny says, deeply skeptical. It’s not gonna happen, anyway. Maybe if he dated a girl who brought it up, seemed interested—he shudders, turning back to his burrito. The idea of handing over that much of himself, when he’s so out of control and needy and desperate, freaks him the fuck out. No way is it ever gonna happen.

 

~

 

“Ahhhhh,” Patrick says, sinking into the passenger seat of Jonny’s car, gloved hands pressing at his eyeballs. “Fuck.”

“It wasn't that bad,” Jonny says, turning on the car.

Patrick glances at him sideways in disbelief. “You were at the same dinner, right?”

“Well,” Jonny says diplomatically.

“Happy fucking birthday to me,” Patrick says, slumping into his seat. “Now imagine if I’d brought Nico.”

“If you’d brought Nico, they probably would have spent less time suggesting you settle down with a nice girl,” Jonny points out, checking his rear-view mirror and then backing out.

“I’m pretty sure they’d still manage it,” Patrick says sourly. “Whatever. At least mom doesn’t randomly burst into tears anymore.”

Jonny winces, because yeah, he remembers that. His fault, too, for talking about the awesome girl his brother was marrying, though how that made Donna cry Jonny will never understand.

“Maybe you’re right and I should just start talking about my sex life,” Patrick says. “Shock them into getting that I’m not gonna show up with a girlfriend one day.”

“Maybe I should shock them with _mine_ ,” Jonny says, shooting Patrick a grin.

“That wouldn’t exactly help them get it,” Patrick points out.

“What, like, ‘See Pat, Jon likes a good dicking and still dates nice girls! Why can’t you?’” Jonny mimics, voice pitched high. “‘You can always do girls through the back door!’”

Patrick snickers, then glances narrow-eyed at Jonny. “You haven’t yet, right?”

“I’ve done anal,” Jonny says.

“No, the reverse—got fucked,” Patrick says.

“By a—a guy?” Jonny clarifies.

“Or a girl.”

Jonny shakes his head. “No, I’ve been...you know, figuring out what works. What I like.” He glances quickly at Patrick, sprawled in the passenger seat and watching Jonny, and turns back to the road, blushing. “I’ve been trying to, uh. Take more time with the prep.”

“Yeah?” Patrick says, perking up at the distraction. “Any good?”

“Not really,” Jonny admits. “It’s too. Shit, I dunno. Not the point for me.”

“Which is nailing your prostate,” Patrick says.

“Yup,” Jonny says, hands loose on the wheel. He checks his blind spot to change lanes, and adds, “The rest of it is like a preseason game.”

Patrick laughs. “You really need another person, I guess.”

“I guess so,” Jonny says, flicking Patrick a self-deprecating smile.

 

~

 

The frustrating thing is that Jonny does want somebody else there. The prep still freaks him out, and the idea of anybody else trying makes his stomach twist with discomfort, but at the end of the day he really, really, really wants to get fucked, and doing it himself isn’t cutting it anymore.

No, he wants somebody else thrusting inside him, riding his ass, pounding in deep, grinding a dildo or, shit, a _cock_ up against his prostate. He’s tried vibrators and plugs and thin wands that he can rub carefully up inside him, but nothing is as good as the steady, thick thrust of the bigger dildos he’s worked up to.

The vibrator that promises a thrusting action is decent and gets its fair share of use, but it’s not long before Jonny’s graduated to sitting in his dining room, dildo suction-cupped to a chair and hands gripping the edge of the table for support as he rides it, moans spilling out of his throat every time he slides down.

Shit, but it’s so _good_. He closes his eyes, gasping for air. He has a flash of what he must look like, thighs straining and arms trembling and sweat beading at his temples as he fucks himself steadily on the thick silicone dick. His stamina is up, though his cock still drips on particularly good thrusts, and ‘up’ means he can fuck himself for about five minutes instead of going off in thirty seconds. Not gonna win any Ironman competitions.

He thinks, though, that maybe, maybe...if he weren’t too wrecked to move after coming, he’d keep going. Push through the overload and jerk himself off again, maybe leave the dildo in deep and use his hand on his cock. His dick’s been neglected, as of late, because touching it, even just fingering at the head or cupping the shaft, brings him off even faster than the internal stimulation alone.

Jonny’s grip slips and he rocks back hard on the dildo. “Oh fuck,” he gasps, hands sliding across the surface as he leans forward.

He folds his arms and tips his head down until he’s watching his heavy dick bob, muscles in his thighs bunching and straining with effort. The black base of the dildo peeks out from between his thighs, slick and shiny and pooling with excess lube. Jonny pulls up, sucking in deep breaths as the bulbous tip catches on his hole and holds, then sinks down, feeling every inch of the thick cock—dildo, fuck, dildo—spreading him apart.

By the time he comes, he’s splayed out over the table, sweaty chest pressed to the wood, shooting over his stomach and thighs and the floor and chanting “yes, yes, yes” to his empty condo.

He can hardly move after, dildo huge and hard in his oversensitive hole, each little shift of his shaking body shooting painfully bright sparks up his spine. He finally peels himself off the table, prying himself off the dildo and sliding to the floor in an ungainly heap of sticky, sweaty, satiated limbs.

“God damn,” he says out loud, blinking up at the hanging light. It’s haloed and shimmery, his senses still blurred from the strength of his orgasm.

Lying on the floor of his dining room, he has the thought that this is getting pathetic. How long has it been since he’s hooked up? Not since Steph, not since the start of this whole butt-revelation. Not for lack of opportunity, either. He cringes, pushing his face into his bicep, as he thinks of the chick he brushed off two nights ago. She’d been gorgeous, exactly his type, and interested—and all he’d been able to think of was how if he took her home, he’d have to fuck _her_ instead.

He takes a deep, steadying breath and sits up, foot kicking at the base of the chair. The black dildo—and god, it really is a cock, semi-realistic slitted head and artful veins included—waves mockingly at him.

God damn it, he is fucked.

 

~

 

The Hawks suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Panthers mid-December. Practice the next day is kind of sour, despite Jonny’s best attempts at lightening to mood. Patrick knocks into him on the way off the ice and says, “I’m kidnapping the kids, you wanna join?”

“For?” Jonny asks, tromping down the hall to the locker room.

“I’m thinking food, beer, violent video games, and a pep talk from Captain Serious himself,” Patrick says, dodging Jonny’s elbow.

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” Jonny says. “Isak, Jacob—Cody?” Cody’s not technically a rookie, since he played the thirty games last season. Jacob’s got a couple years in the minors, too. Isak’s the only freshly-drafted rookie, a first-round pick with an enviable amount of muscle-mass and poise for a nineteen year-old.

“I’d say Shawzy too, but I think he wants to get home to his kid,” Patrick says, following Jonny into the room.

“What about me?” Shawzy calls.

“Just questioning if you’re a grown-up,” Jonny says, tossing his gloves into his stall. “Did somebody really let you have a kid?”

“Hey, my baby girl is the best,” Shawzy says. “You stay away from her.”

“I’m good with kids,” Jonny protests.

Patrick snorts. “Only once they can talk.”

“Kaner, you can watch her any time,” Shawzy says solemnly. “You’re the only one I trust.”

“Thanks, Shawzy, I’m touched. Speaking of babysitting,” Patrick says, knocking Cody on the shoulder as he sits down. “You, me, and the rookies for lunch and GTA?”

“Um, yeah, sure,” Cody stutters, eyes going wide. “That’d be cool.”

Jonny ducks his head to hide a grin. Cody’s got the biggest hockey crush on Patrick and is absolute shit at hiding it. If it were anybody but Patrick, he’d have the living shit teased out of him for it. But there’s no question that guys are more careful with Patrick in the room than they were before he came out—in no small part because Jonny makes a habit of taking guys aside and telling them off when they’re assholes, accidental or not.

At Patrick’s, Jonny takes advantage of the casual space to be as optimistically reassuring as possible. It’s a good system, really—if Jonny straight-up invited the three of them over, they’d look markedly more nervous than they do now, sprawled around Patrick’s living room with beer and burgers, and Patrick lets Jonny do most of the talking. It doesn’t take anything serious—thanks, Patrick—or even all that direct. In his decade plus of captaining the Hawks, Jonny’s found that the young guys mostly need to be reminded they don’t have to be a game changer every night.

After the kids head home, Jonny sprawls out along the empty length of Patrick’s couch with a satisfied sigh and holds out his fist. “Good teamwork. Rookies reassured.”

Patrick bumps it and collapses into a chair, head tipped back. “I feel so old,” he says, rolling his shoulders. “I don’t think I was ever that anxious as a rookie. It was mostly awesome, then.”

“I was,” Jonny says, thinking back. “For the first year or two.”

“Or five,” Patrick says, grinning.

Jonny flips him off and asks, “It’s not awesome now?”

It’s strange for Jonny, because even though he can feel himself slowing down, doesn’t score as much, knows his peak is a thing of the past, the game’s more fun than it’s ever been. He still wants to win, and _hates_ to lose, but he’s got some perspective that was missing when he was younger. Instead of making him care less, like he worried about before, it’s made him enjoy his life more, hockey included.

“Nothing else I’d rather be doing,” Patrick says easily. “But I’m a lot less dumb about it. I think about the big picture more than I used to. Playoff spots and PDO and team composition and injuries and shit.”

“Whaddaya think this year?” Jonny says, throwing his arm behind his head and watching Patrick. “About our chances?”

“Better than last,” Patrick says, making a face.

“No shit,” Jonny says. Injuries on top of rebuilding washed that season down the drain.

Patrick tips his head to the side. “We’re a little unbalanced. We could use a mid-range D-man next to Hammer, and a better checking centre.”

Jonny considers. “Who’d you give up, though?” Their third D-pairing is young but promising, their fourth line reliable if not much for scoring. Jonny’s never been great at looking at the team as pieces to be played and moves to be made.

Patrick shrugs. “Always the question, eh? Media’d say me.”

Jonny chucks a balled-up hamburger wrapper at Patrick’s head. “Wrong answer,” he says.

“C’mon, you’ve seen it,” Patrick says, taking another swallow of his beer. “And don’t give me any of that not reading the Hawks’ press shit, I know you do.”

Jonny has, it’s true, but he can’t think about it without getting angry. After they petered out last season, the media had gone to town on the whole team. The core, the rookies, management—but Patrick, as usual, was a lightning rod for sports writers everywhere.

Jonny has this crystal clear memory of sitting at his mom’s dining table last May, the first May without hockey since he was nineteen, reading TheScore on his phone and growing steadily more furious. No, not furious—terrified. Patrick not on his team, he could manage that. Guys get traded, they retire, they get sent down. You get used to building up a new team every year. But Patrick not there with him, in his life? It’s been years since that was a future Jonny could imagine at all.

“I’ve read it,” Jonny says, more steadily than he feels. “Still the wrong answer.”

 

~

 

“You are so late,” Nik says, grinning at Jonny as he takes his coat.

“I know, I know, sorry,” Jonny says, unlacing his shoes and adding them to the swarm by the door. “I forgot that wrapping is not in my skill set, I didn’t think it’d take that long.” He opens up a Hawks duffle and digs out two bottles of wine. “For you and Elina,” he says, passing them over. “There’s a couple other things for tomorrow, but it’s mostly stuff for the kids.”

“Oh hell, they are going to be spoiled brats,” Nik says ruefully. “You didn’t have to.”

“It’s fun,” Jonny says with a smile. He’s gotten good at it over the years, shopping for first his cousins’ and now David’s kids. It’s much better than shopping for girlfriends, anyway—kids are simple. “You got a tree?”

“Right in the back,” Nik says. “You want a drink?”

“Mulled wine on the stove?” Jonny asks.

“You bet,” Nik says, grinning. “Elina’s secret recipe.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Jonny says, hoisting the duffle back up. “I’ll grab some after I drop these off, you go do your host thing.”

It’s not a huge party; most of the team has gone out of town for the Christmas break or have extended family visiting. Nik and Elina open up their doors for a Christmas Eve party with whomever is left, as well as their extended circle of friends in Chicago. Jonny’s parents are on a South American cruise—his gift—and David’s with his wife’s family, so he’s at loose ends.

When he gets into the spacious family room at the back of the house, he’s surprised to see Patrick there, sprawled out on his stomach and making faces at Nik’s youngest, three month-old Klara. The room’s a cacophony of kids wired up on sugar and Christmas, but Patrick doesn’t flinch as Theo trips over him with a loud yell and then promptly rolls off to chase after a friend.

“Thought you had a flight to Buffalo,” Jonny says, stepping around a pair of girls he doesn’t recognize, engrossed in an iPad.

“Cancelled it,” Patrick says, not looking up. “Didn’t feel like making the trek for two nights.”

“Christmas flying sucks,” Jonny says, deliberately casual. He crouches down to start unpacking the duffle.

Theo crashes into his shoulder, bouncing off with a yelp and then crowding back in. “Tazer, Tazer, Tazer, are those presents? For me?”

“For you and Livia and Klara,” Jonny corrects, hooking his arm around Theo to hold him off as he empties the duffle one-handed. “And maybe for your friends too.”

“Klara’s too little for presents,” Theo scoffs as only a four-year-old can. “I can have them for her.”

“That’s very brotherly of you,” Jonny says drily, grinning at Patrick’s snort. “Woah, hey,” he says, hauling Theo back as he starts to tear at the corner of one. “Wait til tomorrow, little man.”

“Theo!” Elina says from the doorway. “What did I say about the presents?”

Theo goes limp in Jonny’s arms and says something contrite in Swedish. Elina answers him in kind with stern affection, and Theo wiggles away to go hug her knees before vanishing into the kitchen.

“Sorry Jon,” Elina says as Jonny stands up. “You are going to get stuck babysitting if you stay back here any longer. The grown-ups are in the living room.”

“Hey,” Patrick says from the floor.

“Sounds about right,” Jonny chirps, nudging Patrick in the hip with his foot.

“Do you want me to take her?” Elina says, watching as Patrick sits up and settles back against the couch, pulling Klara into his lap.

“Nah, I’m good,” Patrick says, sticking out his tongue at Klara and then grinning when she tries to do the same. “You enjoy your party.”

“A drink, then,” Elina insists.

“I’ll get it,” Jonny says. “Mulled wine?”

“Sure,” Patrick says.

Jonny follows Elina back into the kitchen and lets her fill two mugs for him. She’s got a slight frown on her lips, and Jonny nudges her gently. “What’s up?”

“Oh,” she says, looking startled, and then sheepish. “It’s not my business.”

Elina’s the sweetest person Jonny’s ever met, always concerned for everybody’s well-being, mothering the entire team whenever she gets the chance. She’s also the furthest thing from a gossip.

Jonny, on the other hand, has no shame in being a gossip when it comes to his team. The more he knows about how everyone’s doing, the better he is at his job. “C’mon, what,” he says, taking one of the mugs from her.

“Oh, it’s just—I thought things were better for him,” she says, blushing prettily. “With his family.”

Jonny pulls his lips in and then says, “Kaner, you mean.”

“Yes,” she says. “What’s he doing here? He never stays in Chicago.”

“I really don’t know,” Jonny admits. “I’m keeping an eye on him, though, I promise.”

“I know you are,” Elina says with a smile. “You always do.”

“It’s my job,” Jonny says, taking a sip of the wine.

“Oh, I mean with Patrick especially,” Elina says, eyes twinkling.

Jonny raises his eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes,” she says. “He’s yours, and you are very protective of your things.”

“He’s not _mine_ ,” Jonny protests. “He’s just—”

“Old marrieds, hm?” Elina interrupts. “That’s what Isak calls you.”

“Isak clearly has not learned his place,” Jonny says, mock-serious. “I’ll have to sit him down, go over proper respect for his elders.”

“You do that,” Elina says, passing him the second cup. “But go take care of your boy first.”

Jonny rolls his eyes but goes, heading back to the family room and sitting carefully down next to Patrick, mugs balanced on his knees while Patrick sets Klara back down on the blanket beside them.

“Elina’s worrying,” Jonny says, passing him his mug. “Should I be?”

“About me?” Patrick asks, licking along the rim of his mug.

“Yeah.”

“Nah,” Patrick says. “I’m good.”

“Not fighting with your folks or anything?”

Patrick shakes his head. “No more than normal, I guess.”

Jonny inhales, lets it out slowly. “You’d think they’d get over it,” he mutters, knocking back his drink and reaching out to set it on a side-table.

“It is what it is,” Patrick says tonelessly. He takes a long sip. “Whatever, at least you’re here. Misery and company and all that,” he adds with a sharp grin that Jonny knows isn’t entirely sarcastic.

Jonny wraps his arm around Patrick’s shoulders and gives him a rough squeeze. “You bet, buddy. You got plans tomorrow?”

“Elina’s already given me a pity-invite,” Patrick says, some of the tension going out of him under Jonny’s arm. “I guess I’ll be seeing you back here.”

“Of course,” Jonny says, dry. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He gives Patrick a tight squeeze and then hauls himself up, snagging his empty mug. “Better go mingle.”

“Have fun,” Patrick says, leaning over to tickle Klara. “I’ll join you in a bit.”

Jonny heads back to the kitchen to refill his mug, lost in thought. It’s not like Patrick to stay over Christmas, that’s for sure, but Jonny also knows that he’s been thinking of selling his place in Buffalo for over a year. Maybe he’s considering it for real, now. Jonny figures he can bug him about it tomorrow, when they aren’t at a party where they really should be socializing.

Jonny turns around too quickly, still lost in thought, and slams into another person, upending the hot mug of mulled wine all over his white dress-shirt. “Oh, fuck,” he says, and then registers exactly who he’s run into and says it again. “Fuck.”

It should have occurred to Jonny that Melissa would be here, considering he’d met her at this same party a year ago. He’d gone out with her for four months and called it quits right before the season ended with a whimper.

“Oh, hell,” Melissa says, taking the mug out of Jonny’s hand as he tugs the hot fabric away from his skin. “Was that boiling?”

“Not quite,” Jonny says, though he’s definitely a little scalded. “Hey, Mel.”

“Hey, Jon,” she says ruefully. “Good to see you again.”

Jonny quirks an eyebrow at her as he unbuttons his shirt—his undershirt is soaked, too. “I’d say the same, but I could’ve done without that.”

She makes a face and says, “Nik probably has a shirt you can borrow, let me go find Elina.”

“Thanks,” Jonny says gratefully. “I’m gonna go clean off upstairs.”

He takes the stairs two at a time and heads into the hall washroom, stripping off both shirts. He’s just wetting a washcloth under the tap when there’s a light knock at the door.

“You decent?” Melissa says through it.

“You looking for a yes or a no?” Jonny calls back.

“You’re such a dick,” she says when she opens the door and comes inside, shirt in one hand.

“Sorry,” Jonny says, wiping down his chest. His skin’s a bit pink where most of the liquid landed, but nothing feels too tender. “For uh—you know.” He makes a wide-eyed, apologetic face at her in the mirror.

Melissa lets out a laugh. “Oh my god, don’t give me that face,” she says, slapping him on the arm. “I’m not angry anymore, get over yourself.”

“That’s good,” Jonny says, thinking back to the end of it with a wince. He’d just—known. That it wasn’t right, that he wasn’t interested in more. Melissa had yelled at him about leading her on, saying he’d blindsided her with it, but Jonny’s never figured out how to explain how it was that he could be perfectly happy with a relationship, right up until he didn’t want to be in it anymore. “I know it wasn’t—I wasn’t great about it.”

“Whatever,” she says, flicking her bangs out of her eyes. “It’s not like Elina didn’t warn me.”

Jonny freezes, squeezing out the washcloth over the sink. “Warn you about what?”

“That it’s gonna take a hell of a woman to pin down the infamous Jonathan Toews,” she says, rolling her eyes hard. “Guess I got overconfident and thought that might be me.”

“Ouch,” Jonny says with a wince, grabbing a towel and drying off. He takes the shirt from her, soft cotton, long-sleeved and dark blue, and pulls it over his head. “I’m not—well, maybe I am that bad. But I don’t mean to be.”

“Yeah, well,” Melissa says. “She also said that if a woman ever does manage to win you over, you’ll be all in for life, so it wasn’t all warning me away.”

Jonny worries at his lip and looks down at her. “I had a lot of fun, it was just—”

“Nope,” she says, holding up a hand. “Not going back there.”

Jonny leans back against the counter. “Sorry, sorry,” he says. “I’ll get out of your face.”

She eyes him critically, reaching out to straighten the hem of his shirt. “I dunno,” she says thoughtfully. “I kind of like your face, even if it comes with the rest of you.”

Jonny raises an eyebrow and rests his weight on his palms, braced against the edge of the counter. “What are you suggesting?” he says. They _had_ been good together, in bed as much as out of it.

“Ex sex?” she says with a grin, running her fingers up his abs and poking him in the chest. “Nothing complicated, no strings. I’ve got no plans until dinner tomorrow, so...”

“It is Christmas,” Jonny deadpans, and ducks as she reaches up to slap the side of his head. He twists her around and pins her up against the counter with his hips, sliding the tips of his fingers down the low open back of her shirt. “I’d like that,” he says honestly. He needs to get back on the damn horse. With Melissa, at least, he already knows they work together in the sack.

She gropes his ass and then pushes him away. “Cool. Come get me when you want to head out, I took a cab.”

“Looking forward to it,” Jonny says. He is, too, even if he’s also nervous as fuck for what it’s gonna be like, trying to get off without doing himself for the first time in weeks. If that comes through, Melissa doesn’t seem to notice. She flips him a grin and slips out of the bathroom, leaving him with his stained clothes and tightly wound anticipation.

 

~

 

Two weeks later, Jonny follows Patrick home after a late-night dinner, satisfyingly stuffed and pleasantly tipsy but unable to stop ruminating over his dilemma. Sleeping with Melissa again had been—fuck. He's spent the last two weeks ignoring the sense of doom that tips over into shame every time he lubes up a dildo and pushes it in.

Patrick gives him the side-eye when he slides into the other side of Patrick’s cab, and says, “I’m going to bed, man.”

“Please?” Jonny says, not at all whining.

Patrick sighs and slumps into his seat, head tipping back and beanie sliding down his forehead. He pushes it back up and looks sideways at Jonny, eyes glinting in the low yellow lights. “Fine,” he says, but there’s an edge to it that Jonny can’t quite interpret.

Jonny nods firmly in return, and keeps quiet through the trip back to Patrick’s condo, following Patrick all the way to his bedroom as he peels off the layers of his suit. Jonny flops down onto the bed, arm flung behind his head, and watches Patrick drowsily. Patrick loosens his tie and tugs it out from his collar, tossing it alongside his jacket and turning turning towards Jonny. He tilts his head, eyes dragging up Jonny’s body, and inhales visibly.

“So here’s an idea,” Patrick says, working his shirt open and shrugging it off his shoulders. “Assuming this is about the whole anal thing.”

“When is it not?” Jonny says, self-mockery lacing his words. He pushes upright, propping himself against the headboard. He tries not to think about how last night he’d suction-cupped a dildo to his own bed and fucked himself on it.

“Lately?” Patrick says, peeling off his undershirt and starting in on his belt. “Never.”

“I had sex with Melissa,” Jonny offers.

Patrick’s hands still on his opened belt, and then he slides it out with a deft flick of his fingers. “After the party, right?”

Jonny nods. “It was the first time in a while, for me.”

“What’s a while?” Patrick asks.

“Not since the girl with the surprise finger,” Jonny says morosely.

“I’m getting the feeling it wasn’t great,” Patrick says warily.

Jonny shakes his head, tucking his face into his palms and taking short, sharp breaths. Patrick puts a hand on his shoulder, suddenly right next to him, and Jonny starts with a hiccup.

“Shit, Jon, you okay?” Patrick says in a low voice, crouching beside him.

Jonny turns his face away, pressing it against his shoulder. His voice is so, so small when he says, “It wasn’t _bad_. I’ve had bad sex. This was fine. But it was just—shit, Pat. Just _fine_.” He takes another hiccuppy breath and tenses his shoulders. “What if, what if...”

The bed sinks next to him and Patrick settles in against his shoulder, a warm, comforting weight that Jonny leans into. “What if what?” Pat asks.

“You’re gonna think it’s dumb,” Jonny says raspily.

“I usually think you’re dumb,” Patrick says, then grins at Jonny’s scowl. “C’mon, it can’t be worse than everything else about this.”

Jonny sighs, some of the tension leaking out of him. He rubs his cheek against his shoulder and looks at Patrick, at his drooping trousers and bare torso and receding hairline. “If it had been bad that would have been okay, maybe,” he says quietly. “We had great sex before but it might have been weird now, right? But it was, it was…” He flinches as Patrick pokes him in the ribs. “It was as good as it always was.”

“Ah,” Patrick says. “I see.”

Jonny drops his head back, eyes shut tight. “What if I’m, like, physiologically gay? But mentally straight?” he says in a whisper.

Patrick snorts.

Jonny tips his head sideways and glares at him. “Seriously?”

“Seriously?” Patrick parrots. “That’s not a thing.”

“But—”

“It’s _not_ ,” Patrick insists. “You can’t have a _gay body_ , what the hell!”

“But—”

“Jonny,” Patrick says, turning towards him, head tilted in. “You like prostate stimulation. You like it kind of hard, and you like getting fucked. That’s it. That doesn’t change who you like, just _how_ you like it. Give a girl a dildo, set her up with a harness, and bam. You’ve got satisfaction _and_ tits.”

“It’s not that easy,” Jonny says, louder now. He pushes back from Patrick, shifting further into the middle of the bed. “And I don’t mean finding a girl to—to peg me or whatever,” he adds, flushing hot. He’s watched a lot of interesting porn in the last several weeks. “I know I could…but I don’t want to. I just.” He groans, palming his face. “It freaks me out, asking a girl for that.”

Patrick twists his lips into a tight curl, then says, “More than asking a guy for it? Because those are basically your options, here.”

“I’m not into guys,” Jonny says morosely. “Trust me, I’ve thought about it.”

“What are you not into?” Patrick asks.

Jonny looks over at him, lips curling down. “I…what do you mean?”

Patrick pulls his legs up onto the bed. “Does it freak you out? Like asking a girl to fuck you, you seem to hate that pretty obviously. Is it the same feeling?”

Jonny opens his mouth and then pauses, tongue drifting across his lower lip. “N-no,” he says hesitatingly. “It’s not—it doesn’t freak me out. It’s just not interesting?” He bites on his lip. “It doesn’t turn me on.”

“But the idea of getting fucked up the ass does,” Patrick says, matter-of-fact.

Jonny flushes, full-on down his neck and under the collar of his shirt. He has to loosen his tie and tug at his collar, skin prickly and tacky where the starched fabric rubs against him. “Well, yeah,” he says, strangled.

“By a dick?” Patrick asks. “A real one?”

Jonny unbuttons his shirt fumblingly and tucks two fingers into the open V of the collar, pulling it away from his hot skin. “Yep.”

“Hm,” Patrick says, chewing on his lip. “So here’s a thought.”

Jonny swallows, meeting Patrick’s steady gaze for a half-second and then looking away again, blood thumping heavy under the pulled-tight collar.

“Let me fuck you,” Patrick says.

The sound Jonny makes is definitely, certainly, entirely more manly than a squeak.

Patrick grins, eyebrows jumping up and then face settling as he leans in. Jonny leans away. “That a yes?”

“It’s—Kaner,” Jonny says helplessly. “I’m not into men. I’m not—I’m not into _you_.”

“Sure,” Patrick says easily. “But you’d be into my cock.”

“Ngh,” Jonny says. He takes a deep breath, shuddery and thick. “I don’t know for sure. I’ve never—”

“I’m good at it,” Patrick says, an evil glint to his eyes. “I fuck a lot of guys, Jonny, and they all come back for more.”

“I might not be able to get it up,” Jonny says desperately. He pulls up his knees when Patrick’s eyes drop to Jonny's crotch, inseam of his pants distended by the press of his erection. “I might not want to look at you. I might freak out after. I might—”

“You might like it,” Patrick says. “And if you don’t, c’mon, Jonny. I’m not gonna cry about it.” He slides off the bed and lets his loosened pants drop to the floor, stepping out of them. “That, and you’ve been freaking out about it at me for two months. Pretty sure I’ve got how this goes.”

He strips off his boxers to Jonny’s open-mouthed, blank-brained stare. There is absolutely nowhere to look but Patrick’s chubbed-up dick, and _god_ , Jonny’s aching one makes a desperate bid for freedom, pushing at the seam of his trousers so hard Jonny imagines he can hear the threads creaking.

“Now?” Jonny asks with a voice like a ninety-year-old grandma who smoked a pack a day for seven decades straight.

Patrick freezes, halfway across the room. He glances down at himself, then over at Jonny, and starts laughing.

“Dude, I’m getting ready for bed,” he says through chuckles, snagging a pair of sweats off the floor and stepping into them. “I told you that.”

Jonny frowns as Patrick disappears into the ensuite, listening to him piss and flush and the tap start running. His cock throbs sadly in his pants. He uncurls his body from his protective hunch and straightens out his legs, lying back against the bed in contemplation. The exhaustion of the late hour and long day slowly seeps in, pushing out the last of his nervous, aroused tension. By the time Patrick comes back out, he’s drifting and no longer terrifyingly turned on.

“So?” Patrick says, tugging on a t-shirt and sliding under the covers. Jonny shifts over, giving Patrick back his side of the bed, and curls onto his side to frown sleepily at Patrick, tongue thick in his mouth. “If you’re going to sleep here, at least take off your shirt.”

Jonny shakes himself at that and sits up, swinging his feet off the bed. “Nah, I’ll head out. Early promo thing tomorrow.”

“Cool,” Patrick says. For the first time Jonny notes a touch of uncertainty in his voice, bleeding through as sleepiness overtakes him.

“About your, uh, offer,” Jonny says, standing up and arching his back in a satisfying stretch, “I’ll think about it.”

“Cool,” Patrick repeats, sliding his cheek back and forth along his pillow and then settling in with a sigh. “S’up to you. But you can trust me, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jonny says, reaching over to turn off the bedside lamp for Patrick. “I do.”

 

~

 

They’re on the road for the next week, a miserable trip that sees them drop two and then eke out a painful OT win against the Blues that they should have put away in the third. It’s sufficient to distract Jonny from Patrick’s suggestion—from the whole situation, really. Jonny’s never been a stress-masturbator, prefers to hold onto the tension and fuel his game with it. When they get back home in the early hours of the morning, though, he contemplates digging out his box of toys, but jerks off instead, eking out a meek orgasm and then dropping off into a heavy sleep.

When he wakes up around noon the next day, he figures he might as well take advantage of the dry spell. Fucking himself six ways to Sunday had started taking on a desperate, addictive edge, and maybe that was his whole problem with sleeping with Melissa. It’s been seven days since he’s fucked himself, maybe he’s moved on.

He calls up a girl he’s hooked up with on and off for the past few years to see if she wants to grab drinks. Ellie’s a couple years younger than him and aggressively unattached. Up for casual sex, as long as he doesn’t call her often enough to make it seem like a regular thing.

“And I thought I was a commitment-phobe,” he’d said to her once, after she’d told him he’d been fantastic but twice in one month was too much, give it a few.

“Please,” she said, wiggling into her skirt. “You’re crazy committed. Two dates and you’re in a relationship.”

“But they never last,” he said, snagging her bra off the bed and tossing at her. “Not once it gets serious.”

“You just know what you want,” Ellie said, twisting her arms behind her back to hook on her bra. “And what you don’t want, once you give it a try. No shame in that.”

Melissa might disagree, and Mara, and Renée, and—well. But Ellie’s easy, in more than one way, and Jonny’s never had bad sex with her, so he gives her a call. He takes her out for drinks at her favourite wine bar and then brings her back to his condo, apprehensive but made confident by the wine and her teasing grin.

Everything about Ellie is hot—playful confidence, dark lips, firm ass and pale breasts. Jonny has no problem getting it up as they make out on his couch, pushing his hands under her dress to hold on as she grinds down against his thigh. He gets a hand between them, under her panties, and slides a finger inside, letting her rub off on his palm and swallowing her tremulous moans as they kiss. She shudders through her orgasm, clenching around him and mouthing at his chin. When she pulls back, a low, throaty giggle spills out.

“What?” Jonny asks, pulling his hand free and flexing his hips up into her weight, cock rubbing along her hip.

“You’ve got,” she says, short of breath and pulling up a hand to rub her thumb along his jawline, “lipstick, everywhere.”

“Whoops,” Jonny says, grinning up at her. “Everywhere?”

She sticks out her tongue between her own smeared lips and slides down, fingers working deftly at his fly. “I guess you earned it.”

“Not that I’m arguing,” Jonny says, lifting his hips so she can free his dick, “but I think you did most of the work.”

She ducks her head, tongue flicking over the head of his dick, and then looks up at him with a teasing grin. “You lie there are look pretty and we’ll consider it a fair trade.”

“I see how it is,” Jonny says drily. He props himself up on an elbow, watching her suck experimentally on the head of his cock, and considers. It’s nice, feels good, turns his crank, etc., but now the week without getting fucked feels less like motivation and more like emptiness. He could...maybe she’d….

He flops back, scrapes his voice out of his chest, and says, “So, uh, Ellie.”

She peers through her fringe, lips pursed over the tip of his dick, and says, “Mmhm?”

“Would you be, could you maybe—” he breaks off, sucks in a deep breath, and forges on, “—finger-me-or-something?”

She pulls off and he cringes, sinking back into the cushions. “Finger you?” she says, nose wrinkling up. “Like, in your ass?”

He tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling, blushing furiously. “If you, uh. If that’s. Or not.”

She chuckles, fingers sliding in a loose circle down the shaft of his wilting dick and then back up. “Sorry, dollface” she says. “Not really my thing.”

Which is fair. It’s totally fair. He’s not sure he’d want to stick his fingers up the ass of a guy he saw a few times a year. Or, well. Yeah. The point is: he gets it. He still loses his boner in embarrassment and ends up offering her a drink and then calling her a cab. After she leaves, he lies awake for hours in hideous, nauseating shame.

 

~

 

Morning skate the next day is exhausting, and Jonny can’t keep his spirits up for the good of the team. Everyone’s pissy after that stretch of away games that dragged them out of the wild-card slot, bruised up and chomping at the bit for a win, and Jonny’s sour mood isn’t helping any. Saader, bless him, steps up to his A duties and calms the yammering rookies. Jonny manages to redirect his annoyance to Kaner, who turned down that A a year ago.

That had been a shit-show. Jonny knows exactly how much Kaner hated standing up and saying _yes,_ the Hawks offered it to him and _no_ , nobody discouraged him from taking it.

“It’s not my scene, you know?” he’d said to Jonny, worn out after the press conference. “What you’ve gotta do all the time, it’d stress me out.”

“It’s just more interviews,” Jonny had protested.

Patrick had smiled at him and tipped his beer in an easy salute. “If that’s what you honestly think, then you’re even better at it than I thought.”

Today, though, Patrick spends most of practice alternating between mocking Jonny’s irritability and flat-out ignoring his whining. It’s reassuring to have things be this straightforward between them, and after practice Jonny finds himself slumped in his stall, eyes fixed tiredly on Patrick where he’s methodically undressing.

Watching the slow reveal of Patrick’s body does nothing for Jonny. It doesn’t make him sit up and take notice the way a fit woman stripping in front of him would. He’s a breast-man, and though Patrick’s pecs are smooth and firm, they don’t make Jonny’s dick fill. He doesn’t look at Patrick’s body and see _sex_. He sees _hockey_ : thick quads for pushing off the ice, corded forearms for stickhandling, strong shoulders for muscling along the wall, taut core for balance and power.

Hockey is Jonny’s first love, even if he’s not sure yet if it will be his last. Patrick’s body might not turn Jonny on, but it sure as hell doesn’t repel him.

He’s just hit the point of deciding that while he’s not aroused by Patrick, he probably could handle sleeping with him, when Patrick strips out of his leggings and Jonny’s eyes drop to his thick, soft cock, hanging between his thighs. A flash of heat goes through Jonny’s body, his ass clenching down on the hard edge of the bench. He shifts against the curling, deep flare of arousal, knees widening, sinking lower, his hands clenching tightly on his thighs. Patrick turns away and Jonny closes his eyes, breathing unsteadily through his mouth and trying to decide if it’s a good or bad thing he’s still wearing his cup.

“Man, you really are beat, eh?” he hears Patrick saying. Jonny cracks open his eyes warily. Patrick’s grabbed a towel, thank fuck, and is grinning easily at him. “Get out of your gear before falling asleep, at least. If you’re quick enough I’ll give you a ride home.”

Jonny thanks the gods of ice and steel that he’s always red as the goal light after practice, because all _that_ makes him think of is all the other ways Patrick could give him a ride. If Patrick notices anything odd, he doesn’t call it out, and leaves Jonny to talk his dick down before stripping.

So much for Patrick not turning him on.

 

~

 

Jonny talks Patrick into stopping for gourmet sandwiches and coming up to his place after practice. He knows he needs to do this now, while still feeling the full weight of last night’s horror show. No matter how shit goes down with Patrick, it can’t be worse than that brutal combination of mortification at his own desires and terror that nothing will ever be able to satisfy them again.

“I want you to fuck me,” he says as Patrick stands up. Patrick freezes, empty smoothie container in one hand and balled-up sandwich wrapper in the other, and Jonny’s tongue darts out nervously. “If, uh. That’s still on offer.”

“Yes,” Patrick says hurriedly, coming back to life. He puts the wrapper down, then the bottle, and then picks them both back up again before repeating, “ _Yes_ , shit. It’s still on offer.”

Jonny leans back in his chair, tilting his head to look up at Patrick. “Okay, well. I’m still not sure if it’ll work, but if you’re good with that, I’m in.”

Patrick nods several times in a row, trailing off into a slightly glazed-eye stare over Jonny’s head, before sitting back down again and pushing his garbage into the middle of the table. He folds his hands on the table and leans in, intent, before saying, “I’m good with that. But I’ve got a couple of conditions.”

Jonny straightens, matching Patrick’s pose and clearing his throat. “Go on.”

“If you get off, I get off,” Patrick says.

Jonny blinks. “Yeah?” he says, frowning. “Were you planning on not?”

“I’m just saying, this isn’t gonna be me making you come and hightailing it out of there,” Patrick says warningly, fingers flexing where they’re locked together. “We’re going to be having sex, and I don’t want you leaving me high and dry because seeing another dick shoot is suddenly too gay for you.”

“That’s fine,” Jonny says, because honestly he’d never thought Patrick was offering some weird clinical treatment. Plus, he’d never leave a buddy hanging, that would be unfair. “I might, uh. Not help? Like, if you don’t come while…” he trails off, fingers thrumming on the table, stopping at the grin that flashes across Patrick’s face.

“While fucking you, you mean?” Jonny gives him a tight nod and Patrick says, “Man, I am not going to leave you hanging, trust me,” which, admittedly, has not been Jonny’s main concern here, “but yeah, I won’t ask you to suck it or jerk it.”

“Cool,” Jonny says, clearing his throat when his voice sticks. “You can, ah. In me, though. That’s fine.”

“Thanks,” Patrick says, lips tight in a held-back smirk that Jonny want to rub off his face with a smelly, post-game glove. “Much appreciated.”

Jonny makes a face and slumps back in his chair. “You said you had a couple conditions. What else?”

“Less a condition, more a ground rule,” Patrick says. “I’m gonna do this how I normally do, okay? So if there’s anything that’s off-limits, let me know before.”

“How you normally…” Jonny says, waving a hand down his front. “Fuck straight guys?”

“Yeah,” Patrick says, so casually Jonny can’t tell if he’s kidding or not. Asking for clarification seems out of the question, so he just stares wide-eyed at Patrick until he adds with a huff, “C’mon, Jonny, what’s off the table?”

“Uhhh,” Jonny says slowly, drawing the word out. “What do you mean?”

“What do I—for real?” Patrick says, eyebrows climbing up. “I mean, can I touch your dick? Use my mouth?” Jonny feels his cheeks pink up as Patrick goes on. “Jerk off on you? Play with your nipples? Rub my dick on you? _Kiss_ you?” he finishes with a scoff, sitting back in his chair with a rough jerk. “There’s a lot of shit I can do to you that’s not sticking my dick in your ass, so if you’re not okay with that, you’ve gotta _say_ so.”

“I—”

“ _Honestly_ , Jon,” Patrick says sharply. “I’d rather know before than it be weird during.”

Jonny closes his eyes and lets out a long, slow breath, trying to picture Patrick doing any and all of those things. It’s difficult, the visualization remaining fuzzy and vague, no strong feelings coming through, so he switches tracks and tries instead to imagine Patrick doing _none_ of those things. He’s never had sex with somebody he didn’t also kiss and caress, and he’s not sure he wants Patrick holding back because it might turn Jonny off.

“I think,” he says slowly, leaving his eyes shut, “that as long as you don’t ask me to do things _to_ you,” because he honestly can’t picture wanting to suck Patrick’s dick or play with _his_ ass, “it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Patrick’s silent; when Jonny reluctantly pries open his eyes, he finds Patrick watching him with a strange twist to his mouth, an uncertain dimple in his cheek that deepens momentarily and then smoothes out as Patrick stands up. “If you’re sure,” Patrick says, tone flat as he pushes to his feet.

“If I think of anything, I’ll let you know,” Jonny says, trying to reassure whatever worry has come over Patrick.

Patrick gives himself a shake and then pushes to his feet. “You do that,” he says. “Time's a wasting, though. You down for it now?”

“Uhm,” Jonny says, looking up at Patrick and then rolling to his feet. “Now?”

“No time like the present,” Patrick says. “Unless you want to think about it more.”

Thinking about it _more_ is exactly the last thing Jonny wants to be doing, truth be told, so he straightens his shoulders, takes a deep breath, and says, “I’m ready.”

“Oh,” says Patrick, leveling Jonny with a smirk that is the filthiest thing Jonny’s ever seen on his mouth, eyes drifting down from Jonny’s, taking him bodily in, and then sliding lazily back up to his face. “I’ll make sure you are.”

 

~

 

Jonny strips as soon as they hit his bedroom, shucking his clothes at the foot of the bed while Patrick digs through the dented box of toys Jonny pointed him at.

“Do you need any of that?” Jonny asks, pushing his pants and boxers off.

Patrick glances over from his perch on the bed and then back down. “Lube, man. Where are your condoms?”

“Not in there,” Jonny says, toeing off his socks and coming around to his side-table. “You’re not going to get me pregnant, buddy,” he adds, but he pulls out a roll and throws it into the box anyway.

“Not a fan of risk, buddy,” Patrick echoes. He snags the condoms and tears off a square, tossing it on the bed, adds a bottle of lube, then puts the box back on the floor. “You in a rush?” he says, his lips twitching up in a smile as he settles back against the headboard.

Jonny glances down and then back over at Patrick. Patrick’s still clothed, from his long-sleeved t-shirt down to his socks, not an inch bared. If he’s hard at all, Jonny can’t tell through his jeans. Jonny isn’t, but being soft and naked in front of Patrick is too much an everyday occurrence to feel flustered. “What, are you looking for romance?” he asks, kneeling on the bed and gesturing at Patrick. “I think your pants are in the way.”

Patrick snorts, and then barks out a laugh when Jonny leans in and starts trying to unbutton the fly and drag them off of him, fighting back with knees and fists and finally throwing himself bodily at Jonny. Jonny lets him pin him, Patrick’s forearm pressed across Jonny’s chest and ass resting heavily on Jonny’s crotch, and then plants his feet and humps Patrick with a wide grin. “Think you got this backwards, Kaner,” he says drily. “Your dick goes in my ass.”

“You are so fucking locked in, Jonny,” Patrick says, sliding off him with a hard roll of his eyes. He smacks Jonny on the hip and tells him to flip.

Jonny’s stomach clenches as he does it, nerves suddenly screeching alert as he bares his back to Patrick. He tucks his forehead into his folded arms and lets out a long breath, warming the fabric below his mouth. He can feel the slight rocking of the mattress as Patrick shifts and hear Patrick moving on the bed, but it’s receded, distant and drowned out but the rush of blood in his ears.

Patrick lays a cool hand low on his back and Jonny flinches, buttocks clenching and fingers curling into the fabric of his bedspread.

“You okay?” Patrick says, stilling next to him.

“Just do it,” Jonny mumbles, spreading his legs until his thigh presses against Patrick’s knee. “It’ll be good once you’re in.”

“Oh, god,” Patrick says under his breath, but he tucks himself in between Jonny’s legs.

Jonny clenches up again at the first pass of Patrick’s wide, callused palms over his ass, thighs tightening against Patrick. Patrick does it again, running his hands from up high on his hips down to the crease between his ass and thighs, and Jonny exhales sharply, forcing the tension out of his back and legs. The first graze of Patrick’s fingertips against his balls makes him twitch and turn his head to look back. “What’re you doing?” he asks as Patrick scrapes his nails along the inside of his thighs.

Patrick looks up and reaches out for the lube, squirting a thick glob into the palm of a hand. “Foreplay?” he says, sticking out his tongue.

Jonny scowls at him. “I’m not gonna be into you dicking around down there, get on with it.”

“Nope,” Patrick says, popping his p’s and tipping his head down to watch as he slides wet fingers behind Jonny’s balls and then up between his cheeks. Jonny makes a small, startled sound and squirms until Patrick smacks him lightly on the hip again and says, “ _Wait._ ”

Jonny turns his face back into his arms. “I told you I don’t like this bit,” he whines, feeling caught and exposed as Patrick pries his cheeks apart and rubs lube between them. His fingers catch on Jonny’s hole and Jonny clenches tight again, trying to twist away from the sensation.

“You’re scared of this bit,” Patrick says evenly, holding Jonny still with one heavy hand on his hip and sliding a finger of the other up and down and up and down along Jonny’s crack, little drags over his hole that make him twitch. “I’m not fucking you without prep, so chill out.”

Jonny groans and folds his arms over his head in reluctant acquiescence, hands clenching behind his neck as he works to hold still. Patrick swears softly and starts rubbing at his hole, slick pressure that circles in and then falls away. He slides his nails along Jonny’s crack and thumbs against his perineum, the heavy pressure buzzing through him. Jonny flexes his feet, toes catching on the sheets, and Patrick rubs teasingly at Jonny’s hole while smoothing his dry hand over the curve of Jonny’s ass.

When Patrick finally starts dipping in the tip of a finger to Jonny’s slick hole, Jonny realizes he’s mostly hard, semi tucked under his hip. “Hn,” he says, thrusting experimentally into the bed. His dick swells, firming up under the pressure, and when he rocks back, Patrick pushes against his hole and slides a finger right in until his knuckles are tucked up against Jonny’s ass.

“Oh,” Jonny says, clenching down.

“There we go,” Patrick murmurs, drawing his finger back. Jonny follows it with his hips and lets out a _wuh_ when Patrick leans up and forces him back down to the bed, his cock squeezed pleasantly beneath him. Patrick starts fingering him gently, just one thick digit sliding in and out of Jonny’s hole, and Jonny goes the rest of the way hard. Jonny squirms, parting his thighs even more to try to find some leverage.

“Fuck, can’t you find it?” he groans, arching his back and trying to get that electric pressure inside. Patrick’s unerring only in how he keeps _missing_ , and Jonny lets out a frustrated sound, thick in his throat. He’s sweating, now, aroused and trembling in anticipation and Patrick’s not giving him _anything_ , fucking hell.

Patrick snorts and twists his hand and _oh, oh, oh_ , that is _it_ —and then Patrick pulls his fingers out.

Jonny whines and curls in on himself, panting. “There, you had it, c’mon,” he says, pushing back to try to find Patrick’s hands, try to get them on him, _in_ him again.

“I fucking know,” Patrick says. “Jesus, Jonny, you’re something else.”

“Fuck off,” Jonny says, sagging back to the bed in relief as Patrick pushes in with—two? three?—he can’t tell, only knows that they’re thick and twisting and still avoiding his prostate, fucking him in shallow little strokes that feel...not all that bad, considering it’s not what Jonny wants, not at all. He lets out a grunt, deep in his throat, at the stretch, and then shakes his head, trying to clear it. Eye on the prize, and all that. “I thought the point was for you to get me off.”

“And I thought the point was for me to fuck you,” Patrick says, pulling his fingers free. “But if you’re in such a rush, we can do both.”

Patrick slips out from between his legs and Jonny twists back to watch him shuck off his jeans. He leaves his shirt where it is, sleeves rucked up around his elbows, and kneels back on the bed between Jonny’s ankles. Now Jonny can see that he is, without question, erect; his cock is pushing against the red cotton of his boxers and when Patrick shoves the waistband down it pops out, bobbing heavily. Jonny swallows and refuses to look away, instead takes stock of the length and thickness of Patrick’s equipment. He tries to think of how it lines up with the toys he’s fucked himself with—comparable, he thinks, to the thicker dildos he’s worked up to. But unlike those, Patrick’s cock is something beyond Jonny’s control.

“Passes inspection?” Patrick says. Jonny glances up to see the small smile on his face and then turns his own back into the pillows. Seeing Patrick bare and hard makes shyness well up in his belly in a way letting Patrick finger him didn’t at all.

“It’ll do,” he says, muffled, then flinches when Patrick rests a palm on the back of his thigh, pressing him into the bed while he leans over Jonny to grab the condom. Jonny takes careful, steadying breaths while Patrick gets himself ready, but he can’t help the full-body quake that goes through him when Patrick’s hands find his ass again, his knees pressing up against the insides of Jonny’s thighs. “Pat—”

“Wanna bail?” Patrick says, low and quiet, his fingers playing over the skin of Jonny’s hip.

Jonny shakes his head and pushes up onto his hands and knees to Patrick’s small noise of surprise. The cool air around his body makes him shiver but feels less claustrophobic; he has space to breathe and with his limbs under him he’s more in control, more able to move in response to Patrick’s touch. He’s not sure if he’ll want to move towards or away from it, but he’s not ready to pull the plug just yet.

“I’m,” _good_ , but that’s not quite right, so he says, “ready,” instead, letting his neck relax and head fall between his shoulders, spreading his knees wider to make room for Patrick.

“Hm,” Patrick says and swipes a cool wet finger down his crack, pushing right inside without preamble and tugging on his rim. Jonny inhales and tries not to tense up as the blunt head of Patrick’s dick presses up against his hole, heavy pressure with a spongy give that’s entirely different from hard plasticky dildos.

“Just do it,” Jonny grits out. “It’ll be fine.”

Patrick listens, sliding out his finger and pushing right back in with his cock, pausing only to shift on his knees to fix the angle and then shoving in until his hips meet Jonny’s ass. This shudder is all good, the wide stretch of Patrick’s thick cock rubbing inside him so god-damned perfectly. Patrick pulls back an inch and fucks back in carefully, and Jonny chokes on a keen of pleasure.

“Don’t,” Patrick says, his own voice tight. “Lemme hear you, c’mon.”

“Fucking do something, then,” Jonny gasps, trying to fuck himself back on Patrick, but Patrick keeps moving with him, his cock lodged deep. Jonny wants motion, he wants the heavy staccato of a dick on his prostate, he wants, he wants—he wants to be _fucked._

Patrick gets two strong hands on Jonny’s hips and holds him still and does it, slides out and shoves back in, catching Jonny just right. It’s like the first time all over again: pure devastation.

“Please, yes, don’t stop,” Jonny says, rocking back onto Patrick’s cock, desperate for those vicious stabs against his prostate that send livewire sparks zinging through his skin. His cock smacks up against his clenching abs with each thrust, leaving behind sticky wet marks of precum. It’s all-encompassing in a way doing it himself never could be, the instinctive, base push-pull of meeting someone in the bodily space of sex.

Patrick fucks Jonny with breathtaking precision, but somewhere in his blissed-out mind Jonny recognizes that Patrick’s getting off on this too, his gratification written unmistakably in his cut-off gasps, in the bite of his nails, in the unyielding hardness of his cock. Jonny didn’t think of how that would add to the shattering sensation of being fucked, but it does, _god_ it does. When Patrick slides his hands up Jonny’s back and digs his fingers into the bunching muscle of Jonny’s shoulders, Jonny comes, biting a scream into his own skin as his orgasm tears through him in a brutal rush.

He’s a quivering, gasping mess, jerking with every little move of Patrick’s dick inside him. Patrick pushes against his back until he falls forward into the bed, groaning at the sudden pressure on his dick as it leaps with one last desperate spurt. “I can’t,” he scrapes out, not sure what he’s even trying to do that seems so huge and impossible, but Patrick pulls out cleanly and that’s worse. Only Patrick’s weight settling across the top of his thighs, the hand braced between Jonny’s shoulder blades, keeps Jonny from trying to ride back up onto Patrick’s cock.

“You were not fucking kidding,” Patrick says in a growl, hips moving jerkily. His knuckles brush against Jonny’s ass as he jerks off, and it’s only when damp drops of come splatter over his ass and at the small of his back that he realizes Patrick stripped off the condom.

“Wasn’t kidding?” Jonny says, mouth dry and tacky. He swallows, wetting his lips, and turns his head to the side as Patrick rolls off and collapses next to him on the bed.

“About how sensitive you are,” Patrick says, rubbing the back of his wrist over his forehead. “That was epic, man.”

“Uh,” Jonny says, flushing, “thanks?”

Patrick drags a pillow under his head, yawning. “I’ve never actually seen a guy come just from being fucked before, so it’s mutual.” He flicks out his tongue, eyes falling shut.

Jonny sucks his lower lip between his teeth, still physically off-kilter and unsure of what he should be saying right about now. He feels oddly bereft, unable to pin down exactly what he’s missing, not even sure if it’s something he had and lost or something that he was expecting that never came.

Patrick reaches out, blinding smacking Jonny on the arm, and says, “Chill out, would you? You’re harshing my glow, here.”

“Oh, sorry,” Jonny says sarcastically, peeling himself unsteadily off the sheets and wincing at the sticky mess underneath him and the filthy drip of come down his ass. That’s—new. Yeah. “At least you don’t need a shower.”

“Hey, you didn’t say I couldn’t,” Patrick says, words blurring in a sleepy mumble.

“Guess I didn’t,” Jonny says, sliding to his feet on unsteady legs. “You taking a nap here?”

“No,” Patrick lies, reaching down to tuck his dick—Jonny tears his gaze away, too late—back into his boxers and then curling up. “Shutting m’eyes for a mo.” Jonny can’t help smiling at him, sacked out on his bed. Jonny might have come like a god-damned freight train, but Patrick clearly got off hard too. That at least feels fair, even if Jonny’s can’t really be into the whole thing.

“Sure, buddy,” Jonny says quietly, making his way to the ensuite. Shit, he really is dripping, it’s gross. All in all, gay sex seems pretty unappealing.

 

~

 

Okay, well. Dirty and uncomfortable and not really Jonny’s thing. But. It’s possible he can’t stop thinking about it. The whole thing, top to, well, bottom, hadn’t been at all what he was expecting. Truth be told, Jonny’s not sure exactly what he expected when he took Patrick up on the offer. He can’t stop thinking, though, that that wasn’t quite it, viciously satisfying orgasm or not.

It comes to him, when he’s lying in bed after an exhausting loss against the Jets on home ice, that it probably was over too fast. He always comes quickly this way, embarrassingly so, but when it was just him and his hand—or dildo, whatever—it mostly was a relief not to be reaching for it anymore. With Patrick doing the hard work, Jonny thinks it would have been better if it lasted longer; as it was he barely got to appreciate the experience.

Jonny would go so far as to say he wishes Patrick hadn’t bothered pulling out after he’d got off—what would it have been like if Patrick had kept fucking him right through his orgasm and past it? Jonny never can do much once he’s come, but right now, he’s turned on and flushed as he pictures Patrick pressing him to the mattress and working inside Jonny’s twitching, oversensitive body.

“Fff—” he lets out, squeezing his eyes shut and then rolling over decisively. It doesn’t take him long to get the thickest of the satiny smooth dildos slicked up and pushed all the way in, lying face-down on the bed. It’s been a week and a half since he’s done this to himself, and _fuck_ , it still feels so damn good, even if he can’t stop thinking _what if it were Pat’s cock_ the whole time he grinds against the sheets, palm cupped around the base of the dildo to keep it deep inside him. He comes in a rippling wave, warmth spreading out from his groin up his back and down his legs until even his fingers and toes feel hot. He barely finds the energy to pull the dildo out before he’s dropping into a dreamless sleep.

 

~

 

He shows up at Patrick’s for brunch the next day. They’ve got the second game of a back-to-back tonight and Jonny’s certain the rookies are going to be dragging their blades all over the ice, but at least they aren’t getting hauled out for morning skate as well. Q’s been threatening them with more practices if they don’t get their special teams going, stat. Jonny’s used to one or the other of them sucking ass, but right now both are bottom-third and it’s brutal.

“If you’re here to talk about the powerplay,” Patrick says tiredly when he lets Jonny in, “you can turn right the fuck around.”

Well, at least they’re both thinking about it, Jonny figures, so he holds up hands and says, “Not a word, I swear.”

“Are those breakfast burritos?” Patrick says, taking the bag from him. “For you, me, and the rest of the team?” he adds, weighing the bag with an exaggerated motion of his arm.

“Well, I didn’t know if Nico’d be here,” Jonny says, shucking his coat and leaning down to unlace his shoes. When he stands up straight Patrick’s giving him a strange look, brows and mouth flat and the fingers of his free hand stretching and curling in at his side. “What?” Jonny asks, glancing over Patrick’s shoulder. “Was he—oh shit. Did he care? You said he wouldn’t, but I didn’t want—”

“Woah, slow down,” Patrick says, rolling his eyes and then turning head to the kitchen. “Nico moved to Houston a month ago.”

“What?” Jonny says, tripping over his shoes as he follows Patrick down the hall. “He—what?”

“He moved to Texas,” Patrick repeats with a tone of fragile patience. “In January. For work.”

“You broke up? Why didn’t you say anything?” Jonny asks, bewildered.

“We didn’t break up,” Patrick says, genuine annoyance bleeding through as he drops the bag of burritos on the counter and climbs up onto a stool. “We couldn't, because he wasn’t my boyfriend. How many times do I gotta say that?”

“He practically lived here half the time!” Jonny protests. “He came out to drinks, with the team, sometimes! He like, made dinner.”

“He _slept_ here because we fucked a lot,” Patrick says. “He came out to drinks because he likes a good party and he likes free shots. He made dinner because apparently people who aren’t spoiled-ass pro-athletes learn to cook at some point in their adult lives.” The last bit sounds bitter to Jonny’s ear, well-trained to pick up on the nuances of Patrick’s moods.

“Well, he sounds like an asshole,” Jonny says. “I hope you dumped him.”

Patrick drops his head to the counter with a painful-sounding thunk. “Jesus fuck,” he mutters. Jonny thumps a hand reassuringly between his shoulder blades and then reaches out to dig a couple breakfast burritos out of the bag, nudging one in the direction of the pile of curls and hoodie that is currently Patrick. Break-ups suck; Jonny should know, he’s been through nearly a dozen at this point. Patrick’s probably not used to it yet.

Patrick peels himself off the counter and sulkily goes to work on his burrito. They each finish two before Patrick tilts his head back in Jonny’s direction and asks him what he’s doing here. “Cause I am really not talking about the powerplay,” he adds. “Save that for the rink.”

“I wanted to have sex again,” Jonny says, brain blaring with klaxons of embarrassment as soon as the words leave his mouth. “Um.”

“Oh!” Patrick says, perking up. “Sweet.”

“Yeah?” Jonny says, flustered.

“Well, duh,” Patrick says, tilting his chin at Jonny. “You get how awesome that was for me, right?”

“N-no?” Jonny tries uncertainly. Patrick got off, so obviously it wasn’t _bad_ , but a sizeable chunk of Jonny still feels like he’s imposing on Patrick’s affable nature, here.

“Oh boy,” Patrick says, a grin flitting across his lips. “I listened to you tell me about your magical butt flower power for _months_. It was fucking _torture_ , man.” Jonny mouths the words ‘butt flower power’, blinking slowly in Patrick’s direction. Patrick rolls his eyes and slides off the stool, shoving Jonny with his shoulder. “You coming?”

“Now?” Jonny asks. “I just ate two burritos.”

“Did you digest them in the last thirty seconds, too?” Patrick asks.

Jonny gapes, feeling himself go red. “No?”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Patrick asks, leaning in.

Jonny jumps when Patrick slides his hand down his back, coming to rest on his ass. Patrick squeezes firmly and Jonny twists in his seat, not sure if he’s trying to shift into or out of Patrick’s touch. Patrick, it seems, has far fewer doubts, and takes it as an invitation to crowd in closer, his breath coming in hot little puffs against Jonny’s ear. Jonny flattens his palms against the countertop and pushes back against Patrick’s warm, broad chest. “In a rush?” Jonny asks, coughing to clear the husk out of his throat.

Patrick hums and slides a hand around Jonny’s waist, stroking down his abs and then splaying his fingers lightly across Jonny’s fly. Jonny sucks air in and tightens his glutes in an effort not to push up against the teasing pressure; he’s not here for a handjob.

“Apparently I’m heartbroken,” Patrick murmurs in his ear. “You gonna make me feel better, Jonny?” He rubs his fingers along the thickening bulge of Jonny’s dick; Jonny can feel Patrick’s own erection where Patrick’s pushing against his ass in rhythmic little thrusts. “Let me watch you come on my dick again?”

Patrick curls his hand around Jonny’s hard-on, now uncomfortably tight in Jonny's jeans even as his brain floods with a mess of arousal and trepidation. That is Patrick’s hand on his dick. It shouldn’t be more intimate than Patrick’s dick up his ass, but Jonny’s resigned to none of this feeling the least bit normal.

“You—“ he breaks off, a whimper sticking in his throat when Patrick flicks his tongue over his earlobe. He leans away, edge of the counter digging into his ribcage as he takes short, panicky breaths. “Fuck. Uh. You should, shit. Not pull out, this time.”

Patrick’s hips and hands and mouth still where they’re touching Jonny. “Yeah?” he says.

“Please,” Jonny replies. “Even if I—you should keep going.” Patrick pulls away and Jonny shivers at the sudden chill of air around his body. He turns on the stool, feet sliding down to rest on the floor, and finds Patrick frowning at him. “What?”

“You know I was joking, right?” Patrick says, the dirty tease in his voice hardened over. “You don’t really have to do this for me.”

“I know,” Jonny says awkwardly, scrubbing at the back of his neck. “It’s not because—I thought about it. A bunch. I really want that.”

Patrick tilts his chin, evaluating Jonny through narrow eyes like Jonny’s the opposing goaltender in the shootout, then nods once. “It’s going to be a lot,” Patrick says, but it’s a warning, not an attempt to dissuade Jonny, and Jonny slides to his feet feeling more at ease for having got that off his chest.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Jonny says, stepping up into Patrick’s space so he can make full use of his height advantage as he smirks down. Some of the tightness in his gut eases at the soft, open curve of Patrick’s mouth and the wide, slow blink of his eyelashes.

There’s a moment where Jonny wonders if he should lean down for a kiss. Does Patrick do that? Jonny’s pretty sure gay guys kiss and Patrick’s got a mouth on him—but it vanishes when Patrick headbutts Jonny in the chin and heads out of the kitchen, leaving Jonny rubbing at his sore jaw in confusion.

“The fuck?” Jonny says under his breath, following after Patrick.

Patrick’s sudden handsiness doesn’t come back once they hit Patrick’s bedroom; Jonny pushes away a twinge of regret and reminds himself that this is a good thing. Jonny might have given Patrick carte blanche but he’s still a dude and Jonny’s still straight—at some point his dick might realize person touching it came with another dick. So it’s definitely a good thing that Patrick seems as eager as him to get the the point of sticking said dick into Jonny’s ass.

Patrick’s lazier with the prep than the first time. He gets Jonny back on his hands and knees and slicks him up and spends barely a minute thumbing him open before the head of his cock is tapping at Jonny’s asshole, the sticky, crinkly sound of the slack tip of the condom loud in the quiet of the bedroom. Jonny takes a short breath at the hard press of it against his hole, but Patrick pulls back before he gets anywhere, rubbing his cock between Jonny’s cheeks.

“You want me to loosen you up more?” Patrick says softly, the first words he’s spoken since telling Jonny to strip.

Jonny shakes his head, shivering at the slide of Patrick’s dick down behind his balls and back up to his hole. He almost takes it back when Patrick starts pushing in, tense and feeling every bit of Patrick’s fat cock stretching him open, but he bites down on his lower lip and arches his back to get a better angle instead. Patrick takes his time with it, working him loose with short, rocking thrusts, sliding out and then forcing in, again and again until Jonny’s shaking with anticipation. It’s like being fingered open but so much more intense, the bite of discomfort and the promise of _deeper_ ringing together in Jonny’s head.

“Yeah, shh, like that,” he hears Patrick saying distantly. At some point Jonny’s collapsed down to his elbows, head hung low between his arms and chest heaving as Patrick works deeper, the head of his cock bumping up against Jonny’s prostate in bright, building sparks. “Easy, Jonny.”

“Not a horse,” Jonny mumbles, abs clenching hard as Patrick tightens his grip on Jonny’s thigh and fucks in. “Oh shit.”

He tucks his head down, blinking heavily past his swaying cock at the sight of Patrick’s broad thighs nestled between his own. He wishes with an unexpected ferocity that he could see where he and Patrick are joined; he never wanted to think about what he looked like with a dildo up his ass but this, this is different. Patrick works deeper inside him with focused care, taking Jonny slow enough that he’s not drowning in the hot swell inside him, not fighting against the tidal wave of his orgasm but rising up on the crest of the it and then sliding down in an endless ebb and flow of pleasure.

Jonny’s muscles give out after he comes, his arms sliding out from under him, unable to push back against the rising force of Patrick’s thrusts. Patrick follows, pressing him flat to the bed, his hands coming down beside Jonny’s as he keeps fucking him. Patrick’s knees push Jonny’s legs further apart as Jonny collapses utterly to the bed, cock still somehow impossibly pulsing underneath him. The heavy slap of Patrick’s hips against Jonny’s ass rings out louder now, punctuating each devastating slide of Patrick’s cock over his prostate. He feels like he’s overflowing, his eyes leaking wet drops in the corner, his mouth wide and wet as he moans into the sheets.

Patrick  talks quietly behind him, his weight dropping down to Jonny’s back, mouth touching his ear, holding him down and together with his warmth and words. “You’re good Jonny, so good,” he’s saying as he fucks Jonny beyond what’s good into what simply is. “You’re so gorgeous when you come, never seen anything like it. I want to stick my cock in you and wreck you.”

Jonny lifts a trembling hand behind his head, fingers gripping weakly at Patrick’s curls. Patrick pulls against the pressure and pushes his face into Jonny’s neck and slams in one last time, coming with a muffled cry.

Oh fuck, yes, this is _it_. Jonny bites down hard on the pillow to stop up the answering yell in his own throat. He should hate this but it’s what was missing last time: the thick throb of Patrick’s dick inside him, the desperate stutter of his hips, the scrape of his teeth along the bunched muscles of Jonny’s shoulder. By the time Patrick’s sagged down, loose body pressing Jonny into the bed, Jonny’s as hard as he was when Patrick first pushed all the way inside.

“Ge’off,” Jonny says, turning his head. Patrick groans, breath hot on Jonny’s cheek, and slides off. Jonny levers himself over onto his back, wiping a hand down his sticky stomach. His hand grazes his cock, curved over his belly, and he sucks in a shallow breath.

“How are you still hard?” Patrick asks, curled up on his side and watching Jonny with heavy-lidded eyes.

“I have no idea,” Jonny says honestly, pressing the knuckles of one hand into his thigh, his own eyes squeezing shut. The light touch of Patrick’s fingers to his hip makes them fly open again. He turns his head to meet Patrick’s curious gaze.

“Can I?” Patrick says, scraping his nails through Jonny’s pubes.

Jonny shivers and nods and holds his breath as Patrick first gently cups Jonny’s dick in his palm, sliding loosely along the shaft, then squeezes tight. Patrick starts up a steady stroke, sliding Jonny’s foreskin back and forth, squeezing down with heavier pressure whenever the circle of his thumb and forefinger hits the spongy ridge of the head. Jonny whines; Patrick knows _exactly_ what he’s doing, taking Jonny apart with this perfect stroke.

It’s strange—Jonny’s empty but he’s not feeling it, not like with Melissa or Ellie or his own half-hearted attempts at jerking off. It’s like he’s still full-up of the sensation of Patrick’s cock fucking him open. The only difference is there’s none of the rushing urgency of coming; instead it's this building intensity that rises up from low in his gut, his balls and ass going tight and then mellowing out as Patrick loosens his grip, again and again. He’s still talking, curled up against Jonny’s side and purring out words that are at once filthy and sweet, telling Jonny how hot this is, how hot _Jonny_ is. Jonny starts thrusting up into Patrick’s grip. He can’t muffle his sounds anymore, overwhelmed groans and frozen grunts and then a crushed growl of frustration when Patrick lets go of his dick entirely, pressing his wide hot palm to Jonny’s tightly banded abs.

“Stop working for it,” Patrick says. “We’ve got a game, you’re gonna wear yourself out.”

“Pat—” Jonny says and then shit, _shit_ , his orgasm was something just out of reach but Patrick’s curling his hand around the shiny swollen head of his dick and it’s _there_. His whole body locks up, tense and still, his cock jerking in Patrick’s tight grip, shooting sticky white up his chest.

“Look at that, god,” Patrick murmurs. “Look at you, Jonny, you’re amazing.”

“Again,” Jonny says on the rush of air he finally releases from his chest. “I want—”

“—to be fucked again?” Patrick finishes for him.

Jonny closes his eyes in relief at not having to explain, at Patrick getting it. “Can you?” he asks, feeling small and plaintive.

“Not with my dick,” Patrick says, sounding genuinely apologetic. He slaps Jonny on the thigh and tells him to spread, settling back in between Jonny’s legs like before, except now Jonny’s blinking hazily up at Patrick’s face instead of eating pillows. It might bother him, he thinks distantly, if he didn’t feel so wholly lit up, drunk on pleasure and begging for more.

Patrick slides his fingers back inside Jonny and Jonny sighs, arching his neck and pulling his knees up. He thought at first the third would be near impossible, that the most he could ask for here is to be filled up one last time, but as soon as Patrick starts circling his fingers over Jonny’s prostate that thought falls away. There’s a sharper edge of too much growing into biting agony, but it’s drowned out by that shocking rush Jonny feels every time he gets fucked. He’s going to come, _again_ , and the thought flitting through his overloaded mind makes him shake his head on the pillow, twisting side to side like he can hold off or run away or disappear from this moment that’s suddenly too much and broken and terrifying.

Jonny comes, Patrick’s fingers buried inside and Patrick’s hand wrapped around his cock. It’s the strangest orgasm Jonny’s ever felt. In some ways it’s small, his cock weakly dripping come that slides down Patrick’s knuckles, pushed out by the force of Patrick’s fingers more than anything else. In other ways, it’s enormous, all-consuming, everything else subsumed into the quake of his body under Patrick’s hands.

Patrick lets go of Jonny’s oversensitive cock right away but keeps his fingers steady inside as Jonny sucks in quavering, thin breaths, trying to find his equilibrium again. Jonny’s never felt this spent in his life, like he’s poured everything out and is drifting in blissful, floating emptiness, grounded only by the solidity of Patrick’s fingers in his hole. He twitches around them and lets out a throaty groan when Patrick slowly pulls out, lashes fluttering as he tries to focus on Patrick’s face.

“Alright?” Patrick says, resting a sticky palm on Jonny’s thigh.

“Perfect,” Jonny slurs. He tries to lift a hand to touch Patrick, give him a reassuring fist-bump or ass-slap or something normal, but the most he can manage is to drop his hand on top of Patrick’s and hold on. “G’job. First star.”

“Anytime, Jonny,” Patrick says. He flips up his hand and squeezes Jonny’s fingers in his palm, then lets go to shuffle out from between Jonny’s legs and off the bed, wandering into the ensuite. He comes back with a damp washcloth, tossing it at Jonny’s stomach where it lands with a wet slap.

“You mean that?” Jonny says, pushing the cloth lazily across his belly. He clears off the come and then draws up a knee to reach between his legs and wipe up the slick mess of lube between his cheeks.

“Hm?” Patrick says, eyes darting up to Jonny’s face.

“The ‘anytime’,” Jonny clarifies, watching Patrick watch him clean himself up with a flicker of interest that might be arousal if Jonny were capable of ever getting hard again. Christ. “This wasn’t a one—two-time thing?”

“Four times,” Patrick corrects, snagging the cloth back from Jonny when he holds it out. He tosses it into the ensuite and comes back to the bed, dragging the covers up from the floor. It’s a little early for their pre-game nap, but Patrick’s right not to expect Jonny to be up for anything else.

“You can’t count by orgasms,” Jonny protests. “That’s not fair.”

“Better step up, Jonny-boy, I’m beating you in the points race,” Patrick says with a grin. He gets settled, curled up on his side, and his grin softens. “Yeah, sure, anytime.”

“Unless we’re seeing someone,” Jonny amends, even if he’s still fucked up over the idea of finding a girl for one night, let alone….

“You let me know,” Patrick says, sighing into his pillow. “I’ll be here.”

Jonny frowns and watches Patrick drift off. He’ll find somebody again, Jonny’s sure of it. Somebody better than Nico, who clearly didn’t deserve him.

 

~

 

They win the game that night, against the top-ranked Stars, too. It’s a gritty, bracing win that leaves everybody bruised and beaming when they stumble back into the room after the third. They’d played the last minute and a half down a man, up a goal, and Jonny had knocked the puck just far enough for a shorthanded empty-netter in a desperate full-body lunge. He’s drained in a way that sings of victory and can’t stop punching shoulders and ruffling hair.

“Drinks on me, you beauties,” Jonny crows, pulling Shawzy down into a headlock. There’s a chorus of cheers back—definitely the best thing about the team getting younger is that the general enthusiasm for going out now that the majority of guys don’t have babies at home.

When he gets over to Patrick, though, Patrick groans and scrubs at his face. “How are you still awake, man?” he asks, leaning back into his stall and peering up at Jonny. “After a back-to-back, and this morning?”

Jonny shrugs, settling into Shawzy’s empty stall. “I had a solid nap. It’s all good sore, anyway.” Patrick waggles his eyebrows and Jonny punches him in the shoulder, flushing. “Fuck, from the game, you know what I mean.”

“I really do,” Patrick says mournfully, sitting up creakily and then bending down to start working on his laces.

“You’re coming out, though, right?” Jonny asks, leaning in.

“Eh,” Patrick says, lifting his shoulders. “Not really feeling it.”

Jonny frowns, watching Patrick’s profile. There are circles under his eyes, but he’s pale and that’s pretty normal. The deepening laugh lines at the corners of his eyes that match Jonny’s, however, look strained, along with a tired set to Patrick’s mouth. Patrick slowed down a lot with the partying, once he came out and stopped, in his own words, ‘angrily overcompensating’, but he usually still joins the boys after a win like this. Jonny wonders if it has anything to do with Nico’s departure—or worse, their arrangement.

“You’re overthinking it,” Patrick says out of the side of his mouth, tugging off one skate and then the other.

“I didn’t say anything,” Jonny protests.

“I can hear it anyway,” Patrick says. “I’m fine, we’re fine, the team’s fine but needs a drink. Go do your duty and stop worrying about me.”

“I’m always going to worry about you,” Jonny says honestly.

Patrick flashes him a tired grin and knocks his fist into Jonny’s thigh. “Thanks. I’m good, happy with the win, just drained, okay? Go celebrate.”

“If you’re sure,” Jonny says dubiously.

 

~

 

It’s out at drinks that night when Jonny figures out what’s really dragging Patrick down—Reims mentions there was another one of Those Articles published yesterday. The kind of weak-ass journalism that started popping up when they missed the playoffs last season. The kind arguing that Patrick’s value to the team is less on the ice and more in the—admittedly huge, nobody’s still suggesting Patrick’s anything other than a top-tier talent—return the Hawks could get for him. They’re rebuilding, the articles say; they should be focusing on accumulating high draft picks and promising prospects, not weighing down their salary cap with two aging superstars.

It’s always Patrick they say to trade, too. Patrick insists it makes sense, Jonny’s for _life_ and everybody knows it. Jonny doesn’t get why they don’t seem to understand that Patrick is, too. He doesn’t wear a letter, he doesn’t like speaking for the team, and as he’s gotten older and further away from coming out he’s figured out how to keep the media bored enough to ignore his personal life—but he and Jonny started this together. Fuck if they aren’t going out that way too.

“Jon,” Reims is saying, elbowing him in the ribs. “Jonny, man, you okay?”

“Hm?” Jonny says, looking up from his brooding stare at the remains of his beer. “Oh, yeah. What were you saying?”

Reims shrugs. “It’s bull, right?” Reims isn’t a fool, but Jonny can see the off-centre set of his mouth as well as the blatant eavesdropping of the rest of the table.

“Of course it’s bull,” Jonny says. “Kaner’s a thirty-goal scorer—fuck, he’s on pace for what, 38 this year? You trade him for a pick—even a number one pick—and you maybe, _maybe_ get that back in three years.”

“You’d get more than a pick,” Teuvo says with a pinched look. “A couple guys, maybe a hot prospect and a veteran.”

“Kaner’s not getting traded,” Jonny says flatly. He picks up his beer and drains it, letting it fall to the table with a thunk and then standing up. “I’m out. Good win, get some sleep, let’s do it again on Friday.”

It’s not the most captainly exit he’s ever made, but everyone’s happy enough off the beer and win not to notice.

On the cab ride home, he flicks his phone on and off in quick succession for thirty seconds before tapping out a text to Patrick that just says _nobody’s trading you_.

For all Patrick had begged off tired after the game, he’s awake enough to text back right away.

_Ok thanks GM._

Jonny frowns down at the blue glare of his screen, and then lifts his head to tell the driver to take him to Patrick’s instead.

“Are you serious?” Patrick says when he lets Jonny into his condo, all fluffy hair and bare feet. “That wasn’t a cry for help.”

“I didn’t think you were gonna make a running leap off your balcony,” Jonny protests.

“Uhuh,” Patrick says, giving him the side-eye as Jonny slides out of his coat and sits down to pull off his shoes. “It’s almost one in the morning.”

Jonny straightens up gives him his most dead-eye stare. Patrick gives his—frankly, much more impressively emotionless—version right back at Jonny for five seconds and then sighs, his shoulders rounding in as he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

“You don’t need to listen to me whine,” Patrick says as they head into his living room.

Jonny makes a noise of disbelief in the back of his throat and sprawls out along the couch. How many times has Patrick put up with his complaining in the past decade? More than Jonny can count, more than he’s proud of admitting. Of the two of them, Jonny far prefers taking out his frustrations on an audience—Patrick’s the one who squirrels them away until they explode in beautiful dominance on the ice. It’s fucking awesome to watch, but Jonny’s always been privately skeptical that someday it’s going to go the other way. “That’s what I’m here for, buddy.”

“Oh alright, Captain Toews,” Patrick says flatly, tucking himself into the far corner.

“Hey,” Jonny says, stung. “I’m not—that’s not what I meant.”

His feelings must be apparent on his face, because when Patrick makes eye contact his mouth turns down in an apologetic frown. “Sorry,” Patrick says. “I know.” They sit in silence for a moment while Patrick chews on his lips, staring unseeingly at Jonny while his thoughts flick visibly across his face. Jonny stretches out a foot and presses the ball of his socked foot into Patrick’s thigh, digging his toes in when Patrick absently drops his hand to Jonny’s ankle. “I think,” Patrick says, “that I would care less if they were bitching about my play.”

“Your play’s been amazing,” Jonny says. It’s true—they might both be past their theoretical peaks as offensive players, and Jonny’s definitely dropped off in his goal-scoring rate in the last couple of years, but Patrick’s only inconsistency is that he’s getting better as he gets older.

Patrick squeezes his ankle. “I know,” he says with a smirk that falls away as quickly as he calls it up. “So it’s not—it’s about the good of the team. Their argument for trading me. I’m good but maybe I’m not what the Hawks need right now.”

“Fuck that,” Jonny says immediately.

Patrick laughs, ugly around the edges. “Some argument there, Jon.”

“I don’t need to make an argument,” Jonny says, pushing hard against Patrick with his foot. “Because that one sucks. It thinks you’re nothing more to us than thirty goals, and that’s not true. You _know_ that’s not true. This team is built around what you can do with a puck, and nobody can replace that.”

“Says you,” Patrick says.

“Hey, I’m the Captain,” Jonny says, spreading his arms wide. “Apparently that’s all that matters.”

Patrick rolls his eyes, but when he sinks further down into the couch, it’s more sleepy and less sullen than before. He twists around, tucking his feet up between Jonny and the couch and shuffling down. “I used to think that as long as I was playing hockey, I’d be happy,” Patrick says softly. “No matter where. I don’t know when that changed.”

“After you came out, maybe?” Jonny offers.

Patrick shakes his head. “Nah. After that it felt like the only thing I had that made any sense was hockey.”

“Yeah?” Jonny says.

“You know how things were,” Patrick says with a sigh.

Jonny does. Patrick’s family—they’re a lot better now, but Patrick never got that closeness back. Maybe some of that is just growing up, though. Jonny loves his parents, respects them and genuinely enjoys their company, but every year he feels like he’s a little more his own person, a little less their son. For him, though, it’s been gradual; Pat didn’t have that luxury, had to adapt to standing alone practically overnight. Or as alone as Jonny would let him be, at least.

“You’re not getting traded,” Jonny says softly, because it’s worth repeating, even if he thinks Patrick knows the truth of it. “Not if I have any say in it.”

Patrick huffs a soft, sleepy laugh. “You gonna threaten to leave?”

“Hey, it could happen,” Jonny says, twisting away from where Patrick’s prodding at his ribcage with his toes. He gets Patrick’s ankles in a tight grip, twisting their legs together so Patrick stops struggling. “Remember what Hoss said about Chara leaving the Sens because they traded him?”

“Chara just didn’t re-sign, though,” Patrick says. “You’re locked in until you’re decrepit.”

“Until _I’m_ decrepit, Mr. ‘I need my legs massaged between periods’?” Jonny scoffs.

“You start getting double-shifted on the regular and then you can mock my strategies,” Patrick says. He’s smiling genuinely at Jonny, chin tucked into his hoodie, mouthing at the worn collar. Jonny feels a sharp tug of affection through his gut, his chest going tight and then opening up in a deep inhale.

 “Hey,” he says softly, tightening his thighs around Patrick’s legs. “You wanna?”

“Do I wanna what?” Patrick says, still smiling.

Jonny tilts his head towards the bedroom. “You know.”

“Oh,” Patrick says, sucking his lower lip into his mouth. “I dunno, I’m pretty beat. All I’m up for is, like, a blow job and ten hours of sleep.”

“Okay,” Jonny says.

“Great,” Patrick says. “Wait, what?”

Jonny untangles their legs and stands up, arching his back in a bone-popping stretch. “C’mon,” he says, reaching out with a hand. Patrick lets himself be hauled to his feet, stumbling against Jonny, soft and warm in his sweats, and follows Jonny into his bedroom, blinking in sleepy confusion.

“You’re—we’re sleeping, right?” Patrick says, standing by the bed as Jonny undresses. “The blow job part was a joke.”

Jonny lets his pants drop, heavy with the weight of his belt. He looks over at Patrick, blinking wide-eyed at Jonny, his gaze flicking between Jonny’s face and his bare chest. Jonny rolls his eyes and steps in close, gripping the hem of Patrick’s hoodie and stripping it off him. Patrick lifts his arms obligingly and reappears, ears pinked up and hair askew, staring up at Jonny with an open mouth. He goes when Jonny shoves him back to the bed, tripping down onto it and letting Jonny manhandle him into the middle.

“You really don’t—”

“Shh,” Jonny says, settling over Patrick’s thighs with a concentrated frown. He pushes up Patrick’s t-shirt and rubs his palms down his abs, feeling Patrick inhale and tighten underneath the touch. When he glances up at Patrick, Patrick’s pushed up on his elbows and watching Jonny intently, teeth sunk deep into his lower lip. Jonny lets his hands slide down until they’re bracketing Patrick’s hips, the jut of his hipbones cupped in Jonny’s palms, and rubs his thumbs along the soft cotton of Patrick’s sweats.

“Is this to catch up in points?” Patrick says, twitching as Jonny slides the ball of his thumb over his semi. “Uh, orgasms?”

Jonny ignores him and watches, fascinated, as Patrick’s dick firms up under his touch, pressing against the worn fabric. It’s such a visual response, an erection, blatant in a way a girl’s arousal never is, and Jonny’s surprised to find that he’s got the beginnings of his own. Nothing’s going in his ass tonight, and he’s never found dicks attractive in the least, but the demonstration of Patrick’s interest has an undeniable appeal.

He strokes over the thick line of Patrick’s dick again and again, just along the shaft, increasing the pressure slowly. When Patrick starts shifting underneath him, Jonny lets his his thumb slide up over the ridge of Patrick’s cockhead and around the tip, catching on the dampness where Patrick’s leaked precum through the fabric.

“Shit, Jonny,” Patrick says breathlessly, abs tensing. He’s sagging on his elbows, chin tipped down so he can watch Jonny’s careful, exploratory touch. “You gonna get it out?”

Jonny licks along his lips, heart thumping away in a up-tempo rhythm. Patrick’s cock twitches hard under his thumb. Jonny shifts down, pressing his palm over the base of it as he leans in and fits his open mouth over Patrick’s covered cockhead.

“Fuck,” Patrick says on a quick exhale.

Jonny shuts his eyes, skin prickling as he licks along the fabric, tongue dry and mouth even more so. That is Patrick’s cock in his mouth, so close Jonny can feel the fluttering pulse against his stretched lips as he works around the head. The bright tang of Patrick’s precum at the tip makes him swallow compulsively. When he blows out a hot breath of air through his mouth, Patrick lets out a cry and falls back against the bed, his hands coming up to push into Jonny’s hair and over the back of his neck.

Jonny pulls off abruptly, bracing himself with hands beside Patrick’s hips, his cheeks hot and mouth parched and stomach fluttering with nerves. Patrick’s hands slide off him to rest on his stomach, playing with the waistband of his sweats.

“Sorry,” Patrick says. “I won’t touch.”

“No, that’s—” Jonny swallows, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. He leans bodily up the bed, over Patrick, and snags a half-full glass of water off the bedside table. When he’s downed it, he puts it back and settles back on his haunches, watching the unsteady rise and fall of Patrick’s bare chest. “It’s just weird,” he says finally, looking down at the dark grey blotch of spit and precum. “But so was…” he waves a hand that means every fucking other thing in his life these last few months. “Just bear with me.”

“Can do,” Patrick says. “Do what feels okay.” It’s light and easy, as if he’s not sporting a wicked boner, like he would be fine if Jonny got up and said ‘nope, no can do, sorry’.

The thing is, he would be. Jonny knows it for a fact, because it’s Patrick, and Patrick never asks Jonny for anything he knows Jonny can’t give. The thought settles firmly in Jonny’s chest, and after that it’s easy to help Patrick work his sweats down his hips, curl in, and lick his cock for real, skin-on-skin.

Jonny mouths up the smooth shaft, soft skin over rigid firmness, conscious of how unlike all his other experiences with oral sex this is. Learning how to go down on women took practice, he had to figure out what to pay attention to and what to try and how to narrow in on what works. That mystery, the rush of success of getting it right, getting a girl moaning and grabbing at his head, was half the fun. Here, curling his his fingers around the base and watching as a bead of precum wells up at the top, Jonny can’t stop thinking about what _he_ likes and how getting blown feels for _him_. It should make it easier, but all Jonny’s feeling is the insistent buzz of his own thoughts, pulling him away from Patrick, who’s holding himself still and quiet under Jonny’s exploratory touch.

Jonny tilts his head up and meets Patrick’s eyes, heavy-lidded from sleepiness or arousal, Jonny’s not really sure. He’s never looked at Patrick’s face like this, not before he’s come. “Sorry,” Jonny says, pulling Patrick’s dick upright.

“What’re you apologizing for?” Patrick asks. He snags another pillow and tucks it behind his head, legs and abs bunching momentarily to hold himself up before he settles back down.

“It’s not very good,” Jonny says. Patrick’s mouth twitches, his worried dimple flicking in and out, and Jonny shakes his head. “For you, I mean,” he adds hastily.

Patrick’s stomach leaps with a laugh. “You think, huh?” he says. Jonny frowns at the teasing tone, but before he can pull back, Patrick reaches up to slide a hand along the back of his neck and down along his jaw, the tips of his fingers grazing Jonny’s lips before he lets it fall back to his side. “S’plenty good, trust me. You’re...”

“I’m what?” Jonny prods, lips tingling where Patrick touched them. He dips his head and rubs Patrick’s cockhead against them, trying to chase away the buzzing, tickling sensation.

Patrick flexes his hips, his cock slipping along Jonny’s cheek, and makes a guttural sound. “I’ll make you a deal,” Patrick says, voice falling to a low rasp. “You put my dick in your mouth, and I’ll tell you exactly how good you look doing it.”

 _Fuck_. Jonny’s mouth drops open as he breathes in sharply, cock thickening and a hot flush trickling down his neck. He closes his eyes, fingers tightening around Patrick’s cock and curling into the bedsheets, and holds his breath for several too-fast beats of his heart, then exhales in a long slow hot rush of air. “Deal,” he says, throat raw, and bends his neck to slide his lips over the head of Patrick’s cock.

“Yeah, _Jonny_ ,” Patrick says as Jonny sucks softly at the head, tracing the shape of it with his tongue. “Shit, as if your mouth on me could be anything but amazing.” Jonny grunts and pushes lower, mouth flooded with saliva, until Patrick’s cock nudges at his soft palate. He tightens his lips and slides up until they catch on the ridge of the head, laving the flat of his tongue along Patrick’s frenulum, and then sinks back down. “You look like—” Patrick pants, resolutely holding up his end of the bargain, “your cheeks, the way you go all red when you’re turned on—fuck, Jonny, you are, aren’t you? Sucking my cock is making you hard, isn’t it?”

Jonny makes a sharp sound in his throat, cheeks flaming hotter. The distance he felt before has closed up with the weight of Patrick’s cock on his tongue, the width stretching his lips, the length pressing back into his throat. It’s not sterile or disinterested; Patrick’s arousal is _right there_ , jerking under the swipe of Jonny’s wet tongue, filling Jonny _up_. The whine that rises up in his throat overwhelms him and makes his cock pulse in his boxers.

“Too much?” Patrick says, sliding a cool hand around the hot skin of Jonny’s neck, grounding him.

Jonny shakes his head, lifting up enough to look at Patrick and plead at him with wide eyes to not _stop_ , humiliation drowned out by the kind of desperate need he thought he’d only ever feel with a cock up his ass.

Patrick’s eyes flash with blazing arousal, tongue sliding across wet pink lips, and Jonny shuts his eyes against it, sucking greedily on Patrick’s dick as Patrick starts up again with filthy determination. “I wanna see someday,” he says, words rumbling through his chest, “what you look like doing this with something up your ass, a plug or fucking yourself—fuck, yeah, I wanna see you fuck yourself on a dildo stuck to the wall while you suck on my dick, I bet you’d be crying from how good it was, filled up at both ends, taking it so _good_.”

God, Jonny can’t hold back. He lets go of Patrick’s dick and tucks his hand between his legs to rub his erection and squeeze at his balls; his hole, still tender from getting fucked raw this morning, spasms sharply. Patrick takes his own dick in hand and starts working it in short, firm strokes, fist knocking up against Jonny’s lips as Jonny whimpers and sucks hard. 

Patrick falls off into breathy groans and “Jonny” and “yeah, like that” and “shit, I’m gonna,” fingers tightening around Jonny’s neck. Jonny brings his hand back up to push on Patrick’s belly the way he likes it himself, firm pressure above his dick and _yes_ , a jolt of victorious satisfaction goes through him as Patrick cries out and goes stiff, coming in Jonny’s mouth.

Patrick relaxes with a heavy sigh, hips going limp and hands falling to the bed, and Jonny pushes up, sitting back on his heels. He slides his tongue along his teeth, thumb coming up to rub away the spit from his lips. His cock is aching, pressing up in his boxers, but he’s too caught up in a mental loop of what just happened, what he just did, how much he _liked_ it to do anything about it, and when Patrick reaches for his dick, he twitches, startled.

Patrick stills, warm hands resting against Jonny’s crotch, and looks up at him, a sleepy slant to his eyelids. “This okay?” he asks, pressing his palm lightly against the bulge in Jonny’s pants.

Jonny nods, not quite sure how to make words with his mouth again, and lets Patrick draw him out of his boxers and tug at his thighs until he takes the hint and knee walks up over Patrick’s chest. Patrick pulls Jonny’s dick down to his mouth, settling back into the pillows, and starts sucking at it, tongue dipping under Jonny’s foreskin and over the slit.

“I’m not—” Jonny tries, stopping to cough and clear the burr from his throat. “I can jerk off,” he offers, watching as Patrick licks sloppily at the head and then wraps his lips tight around it, sliding up and down slickly before pulling off again. Patrick knows his feelings on blow jobs and their efficacy for orgasms, but he shakes his head and flashes Jonny a grin.

“I got an idea,” Patrick says, and sucks two of his own fingers into his mouth.

Jonny stills, mouth falling open. He reaches up to grip at the headboard, skin sparking to life in heady anticipation. “Are you—”

“Not too sore?” Patrick asks with a wicked smirk, tucking his arms back between Jonny’s legs and sliding his hands under Jonny’s boxers to part his cheeks. Jonny shivers at the cool air, and then goes perfectly still at the light touch of Patrick’s fingers to his hole. “Jonny?”

“Do it,” Jonny says.

Patrick takes his cock back in his mouth and pushes in with his fingers and Jonny tenses every muscle in his body to keep from shaking. The rough slide of Patrick’s fingers against the swollen rim of his hole is nearly too much but instantly drowned out by the roar of pleasure at their curling stroke inside. Patrick makes beckoning motions that draw Jonny forward, sinking his dick into the wet heat of Patrick’s mouth with each flex of his hips.

Patrick’s not going hard, barely fucking Jonny at all, but between the steady press on his prostate and the heavy suction on his dick, Jonny’s shaking through an orgasm that feels like it’s been building in him for hours. Patrick draws it out with the beat of his fingers and the stroke of his tongue until Jonny’s gasping out, “stop, stop, please.”

It takes the last remnants of strength, drawn up from the well Jonny usually reserves for triple overtime and seven-game series, to roll off Patrick and collapse beside him, fine tremours still passing through his body. He thinks, with an exhausted awe, that he didn’t know his body was capable of being put through four orgasms and a hockey game in one day. “Fuck, Patrick,” he says feelingly.

Patrick laughs next to him and hauls himself upright, disappearing and then returning with a glass of water in each hand. He holds one out for Jonny, and Jonny stares blearily at it while he tries to remember how to move his hands.

“C’mon, jizz-breath,” Patrick says.

“Ew,” Jonny says, pushing upright to take the glass, swishing out his mouth before swallowing. Again. Shit, he fucking _swallowed_. He blinks down at the glass until Patrick pries it from his hand and puts it aside.

“You can brush your teeth,” Patrick says, crawling back into bed. “I did.”

“Nah,” Jonny says, carefully setting the glass down and tucking his dick back into his boxers. “Tomorrow. Sleep now.”

Patrick snorts and says, “I told you it was too late for this shit.”

“Too late for fucking,” Jonny says sleepily, rubbing at his mouth and blushing when he realizes his lips are actually swollen. He drops his hand and shuts his eyes, breathing out unsteadily.

“Hey,” Patrick says softly. “Was that too much? You said you didn’t want to, before.”

“I said I didn’t _know_ if I’d want to,” Jonny corrects. “Guess I didn’t mind it.”

Patrick hums softly and says, “Guess not.”

Something in Jonny unknots at that, at the realization that Patrick’s not going to start crowing over his sudden enthusiasm for dick-sucking, or about...the rest of it. Jonny’s given up a lot of his pride in the last few weeks, but he thinks if Patrick started mocking him, that would be too humiliating to handle. All Patrick’s been, though, is into it. Into Jonny and his fucked-up desires.

If there’s an upshot to all this, Jonny thinks as he drifts off to sleep, that’s definitely it.

 

~

 

Jonny wakes up the next morning and lies in bed and tries to decide if he feels gayer after what happened last night. On one hand, he put a dick in his mouth, which is, you know, objectively pretty gay. But Patrick’s always saying that sexuality is about how you feel and not what you do, and Jonny doesn’t feel any different from last night. Probably still straight, then, which is sort of a bummer because Christ, is Patrick ever good at getting Jonny off.

The Patrick in question snuffles in his sleep next to Jonny, curled up and drooling on his pillow. Jonny rubs a hand absently across his morning wood, flattening it on his stomach and resting his palm heavily along the shaft, his thumb curling around the head.

“Pat,” he says softly.

Patrick makes a snorting little snore.

Jonny kicks him in the shin.

Patrick’s eyes slit open. “What,” he says, voice deep and dry.

“Do you want to—”

“No,” Patrick cuts him off.

Jonny flushes, hand sliding off his dick to the bed beside him. That’s not better, since now his dick is propping up the sheets in a small and damning tent. “Uh,” he says.

Patrick pushes his face into the pillow and makes an extended noise that sounds like “mmmmphhharrghhh”, then reappears, red-faced but slightly wider-eyed. “Jesus Christ Jonny,” he says. “We went to sleep at two AM. You got off four times yesterday. And you’re not a fucking morning person at all.”

“So?” Jonny says, defensive. Technically it was five times, but he's not about to tell Patrick that. “I like sex.”

“I like sleep,” Patrick says fervently, but he’s also throwing out an arm to grab the lube off the nightstand and telling Jonny to roll over, so Jonny bites back a grin and the rest of his argument and goes.

Patrick fucks him on his side in sleepy, shallow rolls of his hips, his breath humid puffs on the back of Jonny’s neck and his hand stroking gently over Jonny’s hip and along his ass. He keeps stopping every time Jonny’s just about there, stilling with his dick inside and bringing his fingers down to play around Jonny’s stretched, slick hole while Jonny curses him out. When he finally makes Jonny come, he’s got another finger tucked in beside his cock and Jonny’s all but sobbing.

“You’re making me breakfast, you jerk,” Patrick says afterwards, pulling the blankets over himself and curling back up. As if he hadn’t spent the last twenty minutes whispering in Jonny’s ear about how good this was, how perfect Jonny’s ass was, how hot and tight he felt around Patrick’s cock.

It’s Jonny’s turn to mumble incoherently into his pillow until Patrick prods him in the back of the neck with a sharp fingernail. “Fine, fine,” Jonny groans, pushing himself up on his elbows. Fuck, he feels good. Nothing like an orgasm to get him ready to start the day. He really could get used to this.

 

~

 

It’s a solid pace to start off with, and though there’s no earthly way they could keep it up for a full sixty, Patrick fucking Jonny becomes a regular part of their well-worn routine. It should be strange, adding this layer to their friendship, but then, it’s not an entirely new sensation.

Before Patrick came out, their friendship was shaped by hockey, and by an awareness that they were sharing an experience few others could understand. After, though—Jonny made a point of sticking close through that whole mess. He gave Patrick every bit of support he could muster up, not only as his captain, but as his friend. They came out the other side with a friendship that grounds Jonny not just at the rink, as a Hawk, but as a person.

Friends to...friends who fuck feels like less of a leap, in many ways.

“Fuuuuck,” Jonny says, smashing his face into the pillows. Patrick pauses, fingers of one hand wrapped tight around the base of Jonny’s cock, the others buried deep in Jonny’s ass. “So—shit, move—glad this is you.”

“As opposed to all your other gay friends?” Patrick says, amused.

There’s a sharp scrape of teeth along the meat of Jonny’s ass. “Did you just bite me?” he says, twitching as Patrick twists his fingers in deeper and teases at his prostate.

“It was a longstanding urge,” Patrick says drily, leaning in and digging his teeth in again. Jonny bucks back, laughing until Patrick curls his fingers and he’s choking on pleasure, instead.

Patrick fingerfucks him to the edge and over it, laying his teeth into Jonny’s skin with distracting unpredictability, the sting of each bite cutting through the rush of arousal. When Jonny comes out the other side of his orgasm, Patrick’s dragging his tongue over the tender skin.

Jonny flexes his spine, stretching and then settling himself back into the bed, head folded on his arms and knees spread wide.

"Shit, Jonny," Patrick says appreciatively. He drags a wet thumb down Jonny's crease, bumping over his sensitive hole, and sucks at the swell of Jonny's ass.

"Am I gonna have to watch my towel at practice tomorrow?" Jonny says, bucking against Patrick’s mouth.

Patrick sinks his thumb back in and cups Jonny's balls with his fingers, pushing back until Jonny has to hold still, caught on Patrick's hand. Patrick sucks a line of hickies along his ass and then dips his tongue in, lapping at Jonny's hole around the knuckle of his thumb. Jonny makes a soft sound in his throat, abs clenching tight at the delicate sensation, but Patrick pulls away right away.

"Blech, lube," Patrick says, then spits.

Jonny jerks under Patrick's hold, inhaling at the tug on his balls. "Did you spit on my asshole?"

"Yup," Patrick says. Jonny can hear the smirk in his voice and pushes his red face into the pillows.

"Gross," he says, muffled. He turns his head and says, reproachful, "There's lube right there."

"Maybe I like messing you up," Patrick says. He grabs a condom wrapper and tears it open with his teeth before rolling it on his cock  where it juts out of the fly of his boxers. He slides his thumb in and out and asks, "D’you _want_ more lube?"

Jonny considers, focusing on the rough glide of Patrick's skin over his rim. Much of the lube from Patrick loosening him up has worn away, but the condom is lubed, and the edge of pain might help Jonny hold off. "Nah," he says. "Let me feel it."

Patrick spits again, pulling out his thumb to smear it around.

"I meant your dick, jerkoff," Jonny grumbles, ignoring the prickle of heat that crawls up his spine at the dirty rub of Patrick’s fingers.

"Sure," Patrick says, and shoves his cock against Jonny's hole, popping the head in before Jonny realises what's going on.

"Woah," Jonny says faintly, leaning away in surprise. Patrick follows, hand curving around Jonny's hip to keep him close. "Thanks for the warning."

"Welcome," Patrick says.

"Ugh," Jonny says thickly, drawing up his shoulders and tightening down on Patrick's cock, trying to force his body to adapt to the sudden stretch. Patrick holds still except for where his fingers are tracing over Jonny's lower back, a ticklish touch that makes Jonny shiver and draws his tension down. He swallows, picking up his head, and rocks back experimentally.

"Yeah, Jonny," Patrick says as Jonny works himself onto Patrick's cock. "Take it in, easy, like that."

"Shut up," Jonny grits out, leaning forward and shivering at the tug of Patrick's dick, wide hot pressure pulling inside him. The slide back down is sticky and rough and Jonny groans, arching his back. "Oh God, there."

Patrick tightens his grip on Jonny's hip and moves, a small controlled roll of his hips that grinds his cock in against Jonny's prostate. Jonny stills, tightening every muscle in his body except his mouth, which falls open on a low moan.

"You wanna last?" Patrick asks. "Or you wanna go?"

As if Jonny can _think_ when Patrick's overwhelming him with the perfect press of his cock inside. He pushes his face into the pillows, biting down against the curling build of pleasure in his spine, raw like the drag of Patrick's cock and so close, just there—

Patrick pulls out, the dry slide a stinging counterpoint to Jonny's wound up arousal. Jonny's cock pulses, leaking heavy drops into the bedsheets.

"What," Jonny pants, trembling at the edge of coming, feeling like Patrick's pulled him back by the scruff of his neck, "the fuck?"

"Do you want it now?" Patrick says, sliding his cock, sticky and hot, up and down Jonny's crease.

"I—"

"Think, Jonny," Patrick says, sharp voice cutting through and catching Jonny's scattered attention. "If you can, do you want to hold off? Or do you want to come now?"

Jonny wets his lips and thinks, empty and desperate and trying to look past that. "No," he says, cock aching. "No, I want to last."

Patrick lays a soft kiss to the hollow of his spine. "Awesome," Patrick says. "Let's figure out how to do that."

 

~

 

"I'm glad it's you because of that sort of thing," Jonny says afterwards, sitting gingerly on a barstool in his kitchen while Patrick flips through takeout menus.

"What sort of thing?" Patrick says absently, sorting the menus into three piles: ‘yes,’ ‘not today,’ and ‘get rid of this, their food is disgusting'. He's so fucking picky, always taking the longest time in any restaurant to consider every single option and holding everyone else up.

"Pushing me like that," Jonny says, tipping his head back towards the bedroom. "Not just anybody would. I wouldn't listen to just anybody."

Patrick glances up. "It's pretty easy with you,” he says. “I already knew what you like."

"Not in bed," Jonny protests.

"You're not a different person when you're having sex," Patrick says, pushing the ‘yes’ pile towards Jonny. "It's not that hard to extrapolate."

Jonny looks down, chewing on his lip uneasily. He feels like a different person when he's getting fucked, is the thing. Maybe it's because he's not gay; it's less real because it's not what he's really into.

"Chill, Jon," Patrick says, slapping him on the back of the head. "Pick your favourite."

Jonny shakes him off and looks more closely at the menus.

"These are all the same restaurant," Jonny says, flipping through the menus. He really should clean out that drawer.

"What, no way?" Patrick says blankly, cracking with a laugh when Jonny tries to shove the stack into his face.

"I thought I got to pick after you vetoed," Jonny whines.

"Do you not want Chinese?" Patrick asks with a skeptical expression. Jonny makes a face and Patrick snickers. "See? You're easy."

"Suck my dick." Jonny says rolling his eyes. "Fine, but I'm making our order."

“I am completely unsurprised,” Patrick says, sliding off the stool. “Have at it.”

 

~

 

They have a game in Winnipeg the day of the trade deadline, so Jonny drags Patrick to his parents’ for lunch after practice to distract him, and also to help defend against his mother’s sad comments about him never coming back to play for the Jets. Patrick’s not much use, though; he spends the first half of lunch with his head tucked down, refreshing his twitter feed every ten seconds. It’s only when Jonny’s mom asks pointedly if Patrick is expecting a call that Patrick grimaces apologetically and tucks it in his back pocket.

“We’re not trading you,” Jonny says mildly, following Patrick into his room when they get back to the hotel. Patrick ignores him and changes into his sweats, then settles onto the bed with his iPad. Jonny leans against the wall and watches as Patrick pulls up Twitter, NHL.com, TheScore, Sportsnet, and Puck Daddy in sequence before saying, “Nope,” and leaning over to snag the iPad out of Patrick’s hands.

“Hey!” Patrick says, twisting to try to snatch it back.

“You are not going to nap if you keep driving yourself nuts with this,” Jonny admonishes, tucking the tablet back into Patrick’s duffle.

“Not gonna sleep anyway,” Patrick says mulishly. “Hardly could last night.”

Jonny folds his arms across his chest and looks Patrick over. Patrick tilts his chin up, sprawled back against the headboard. He does look tired, a heavy slump to his shoulders and pale purple circles under his eyes. Jonny feels a pang of guilt, wondering how many hours he’s been stealing from Patrick with their non-stop fucking. It must show on his face, because Patrick’s cheek twitches and he says, “Oh, c’mon, you know I pass out after I get off most of the time.”

Jonny shrugs, rubbing at his biceps. “It’s not like I stay awake to tell if you do,” he admits. “You wear me out pretty good.”

Patrick grins; it’s soft and—cocky, but that’s not quite right. Proud, maybe, but for some reason that makes Jonny flush, arms tightening over his chest like he’s trying to hold the warmth in. “Yeah, I do,” Patrick says, voice dropping down into his chest. “C’mere, your turn to wear me out.”

“Now?” Jonny says, even as he’s starting in on the fly of his jeans. They’ve been at home a lot the last month and have managed to keep this out of hotels, thus far. It seemed wise, considering the thin walls and frequent visits by teammates, but Patrick looks like he could use a distraction.

“You can be quiet,” Patrick says, all easy confidence as he watches Jonny strip. He likes to be dressed, Jonny’s noticed. Jonny’s not sure if Patrick likes the imbalance of it—Jonny never keeps anything on if he can help it, even when he’s not having sex—or if he’s actually shy. Half-a-decade ago he’d have laughed at anyone who called Patrick shy, but after watching him struggle through the invasion of his private life that came with coming out, Jonny knows Patrick likes to keep a few barriers up between himself and the world.

Jonny’s not sure he’s okay with being something Patrick needs to protect himself against, though.

“Hey,” Patrick says, interrupting Jonny’s thoughts. “You with me?”

“For sure,” Jonny says automatically, going back to undressing. When he’s naked, he sticks his tongue into his cheek and considers. Patrick’s clearly waiting for him to decide what he wants, but Jonny can see he’s still soft, so simply lying down and expecting Patrick to get to it seems rude.

It doesn’t make it less weird to crawl up the bed and settle himself over Patrick’s lap. Patrick makes a soft, startled sound in his throat, his hands coming up to rest lightly on Jonny’s hips. “Hello,” Patrick says, tilting his head up as Jonny settles heavily against him.

“This okay?” Jonny says.

Patrick slides his hands around to grip at his ass, digging his fingertips in hard. Jonny shivers, and Patrick grins. “Oh yeah,” he says, scraping lightly over the curve of Jonny’s ass and down under his thighs, a teasing, anticipatory touch. “No complaints.”

Now that he’s here, Jonny’s not completely sure of how to proceed. For all Patrick’s prodding about what might be too gay for Jonny, they’ve never actually done it face-to-face. He’s gotten his hand on Patrick’s dick, sure, or sucked him hard a couple times to get Patrick ready to fuck him, but that always felt like a means to an end, not that usual careful build-up to sex that happens when you sleep with a woman on the regular.

Jonny wanted to get fucked, Patrick wanted to fuck him, that’s it. Easy, uncomplicated, the addition of orgasms a surprisingly straightforward shift in their friendship. This is different. Patrick is sprawled against the headboard and touching him nearly chastly, soft passes of palms and fingertips down his legs, up his stomach, over his chest. It gives Jonny this bizarre sensation of déjà vu: it’s like his vision shifts outwards, overlaying this moment with every time he’s taken a girl to bed and set about making it good for her.

“Uh,” Jonny says, stilling his hips. He’s only half-hard himself, his cock dragging across the line of hair that disappears under the waist of Patrick’s sweats. He can feel Patrick’s dick under his ass, warm between his cheeks when he settles back. Patrick lets out a grunt, hands tightening where they’ve wandered to Jonny’s waist.

“Oh, yeah,” Patrick says, pushing up against Jonny’s ass, his head tilting back against the headboard. “That’s good.”

“Yeah?” Jonny says, rocking his hips experimentally. Patrick’s cock fills quickly, pushing up behind Jonny’s balls as it strains against his sweats, and Jonny shivers.

“Cold?” Patrick says. He slides his hands around to Jonny’s back, up to his shoulder blades, and tugs him closer until Jonny has to brace himself up on the edge of the fabric headboard to keep from falling into Patrick.

“A little,” Jonny admits. Patrick slides his hands back down to squeezes his ass and he twitches. “Guess I’ll have to figure out how to warm myself up,” he adds, trying for flippant.

Patrick quirks a grin and lets go of his ass, working his hands under Jonny’s thighs to shove his sweats down and pull out his cock. It bounces up against Jonny’s ass with a heavy smack, and Jonny arches back against it, head dropping down to press against his bicep as Patrick works the head between his cheeks to rub at his hole, dry and smooth and so, so tantalizing. Patrick’s made him like this, like he’d said someone could, and blood rushes to his cock, filling it up as Patrick smacks his cock against his ass and pushes the wide head against his hole. Jonny’s holding himself up now, thighs tensed and back arched, pushing down minutely as Patrick teases his ass with the weight of his cock.

“You gonna put it in?” Jonny says roughly, turning to bite at Patrick’s ear impatiently.

Patrick’s cock jerks against Jonny’s ass, and he says, “You gonna get the lube?”

“Ugh,” Jonny says. “Where is it?”

“Duffle, side pocket,” Patrick says.

Jonny hauls himself up to dig it out. When he comes back to the bed, Patrick’s stripped off his shirt and tucked a couple of pillows behind his back,  so Jonny figures they’re doing it this way. Patrick was tired—Jonny supposes he can do the work for once. He settles himself over Patrick’s thighs and squeezes out a dollop of lube into the palm of his hand, then takes Patrick’s dick in hand. Patrick curls in and hisses at the cold touch, but settles easily back against the headboard as Jonny starts up a steady stroke, getting Patrick all the way hard and slick.

“Uh,” it’s Patrick’s turn to say. He’s staring down at Jonny’s fist where it’s working over his shiny red dick. “Forgot something?”

“Huh?” Jonny says.

Patrick looks up. “Condom?”

Jonny blinks and looks down and watches the head of Patrick’s cock disappear in his fist again and again. “Is there,” he coughs, clearing his throat when it sticks, “uh, a reason? Why I should use one?” His skin prickles with the intense worry that the answer will be _yes,_ that Patrick’s carefulness thus far means something awful, unthinkable. “Because you’re really not gonna get me pregnant,” he adds in a rush, “and I’m clean, I swear, and it’s not like either of us have the time to pick up anyone else, at least I haven’t, and if you are no wonder you aren’t sleeping—”

“Jonny, Jonny,” Patrick interrupts, wrapping his hand around Jonny’s and stopping the likely-uncomfortably frantic pull of it over his cock. “Chill.”

“Sorry,” Jonny says miserably, sagging back onto his heels. “If you want to I can, but—you’re okay, right?”

Patrick tightens his mouth; Jonny really can’t tell if he’s angry at him or laughing at him, but he just says, “Yeah, of course.”

“Not a fan of risk, eh?” Jonny says with a weak grin.

Patrick shrugs. “I fuck a lot of guys, and ones I don’t know very well. It’d be dumb if I didn’t.”

“You know me,” Jonny says, offended. “And are you—now? I mean, we’ve been, a lot.”

That makes Patrick laugh. “Yeah, you and your ridiculous ass are so demanding. Definitely not been getting around lately.”

“Then you can,” Jonny offers.

“It’s not gonna feel different to you,” Patrick says with a skeptical look.

“It will to you, though, right?” Jonny says, which, duh. He’s dated girls long enough to dispense with condoms plenty, and there’s no question getting your dick inside feels better without plastic in the way. “So go for it, man, I trust you.”

“I—” Patrick says, and then cuts himself off when Jonny rises up and shuffles in closer, getting Patrick’s cock tucked back between his cheeks. “Fuh—okay, sure.”

Jonny likes Patrick’s force and decisiveness, loves the way Patrick pushes him down and fucks him with controlled perfection—but this is something entirely different. Patrick’s the one taking it, sprawled out and watching Jonny with parted lips, taking hitching breaths as Jonny forces in the head of his cock. The stretch is all pleasure, all promise of what’s to come, any fear Jonny felt in this moment ancient history. His thighs work to keep his descent measured, and that too feels great, a muscular burn he associates with the first strong stride on ice. He lets go of Patrick’s cock and holds himself still, rolling his head on his neck and trying to release some of his anticipatory tension.

Patrick makes a throaty sound, hands coming back up to grip Jonny’s asscheeks, pushing them together around his cock and then pulling them wide. “Ohhhh,” Jonny says, clenching tight. He sinks down slowly, taking Patrick in inch by inch, spearing himself on that thick cock with a patience he couldn’t have imagined six weeks ago.

Patrick’s cock pushes up against his prostate and Jonny freezes, breath locking up in his chest, abs clenching as he fights not to give into the urge to fuck down hard. He tightens his hands on the edge of the headboard, staring down at Patrick dazedly as he rises up and slides down again, enough to make himself tremble.

“Oh shit, look at you,” Patrick breathes out. He’s watching Jonny right back, eyes locked on Jonny’s face, which is—that’s new.

“Yeah?” Jonny says, working into a steady pace that’s making his dick purple up where it’s bobbing between their stomachs. When Patrick’s cock catches just right inside, Jonny’s balls tighten up and a droplet of precum leaks out of the tip.

“Yeah,” Patrick says, glancing down at Jonny’s cock as it starts to leak steadily, clear thin fluid followed by thick white beads as the pressure of Patrick’s cock builds in him. Patrick lets go of Jonny’s ass with a reluctant last squeeze and drags a fingertip over the head of Jonny’s cock, smearing the wetness over the glossy head as he glances back up. Jonny bites down on his lower lip to keep from whimpering.

“You do this thing with your face, I didn’t know,” Patrick goes on, voice low and rough. “Your eyes go wide, your mouth—it’s like you’re surprised, shocked, like you can’t believe how good my cock feels in you.”

Jonny groans, the sound echoing through his chest, and Patrick shushes him with a quiet urgency. “Got neighbours, Jonny,” he says, bringing his other hand up to Jonny’s face while he plays with his cock, teasing at the damp head and then sliding down to stroke at his balls. He touches Jonny’s mouth and then, without warning, pushes two thick fingers into his mouth.

Oh _god_. Jonny sucks instinctively, shocked and burning up but drawing them in further and curling his tongue to stroke at the salty skin. He can feel the pleasure building in his groin, bubbling up his spine and spreading out under his skin, but he doesn’t want to come, not quite, not yet. When he slides down once more, he forces himself to hold it, hips working in little circles to rub Patrick’s cockhead over his prostate. A moan spills out of him, thick and muffled around Patrick’s fingers, and his cock starts to jerk, come welling up over the tip and sliding down around Patrick’s circled fist. For a moment Jonny’s afraid that Patrick will start jerking him off and pull him right over, but he leaves his hand loose and talks Jonny through it, thumbing gently at his jaw.

“There you go, yeah, Jonny, feels good doesn’t it?” Patrick murmurs. “Fuck, I can feel you twitching on my cock, holding back so good for me.” He rubs his fingers against Jonny’s tongue and then pulls his fingers out, dragging wetly over Jonny’s lower lip.

Jonny sucks in a deep breath through his empty mouth, sagging down heavily as the rush recedes to a safe distance. Patrick lets out a soft huff and slides his wet fingers through the drops of Jonny’s come on his belly.

“Nghhh.” Jonny ducks to wipe the sweat off his forehead. When he straightens up, he settles back onto Patrick’s dick, taking it all the way inside. Patrick rolls his hips under him and Jonny groans and says, “Fuck, don’t, I’m gonna—”

Patrick tightens his fingers around Jonny’s dick and then lets go, settling his palm on Jonny’s thigh. Jonny inhales carefully and starts moving again, riding Patrick’s cock with a steady roll of his hips. Before, he was working the head against his prostate; now the thick width of Patrick’s cock is rubbing up against it, steady grinding friction that makes Jonny moan. “Your fingers, please,” he gasps. Patrick blinks up at him, glassy-eyed, his tongue sliding in a circle to wet his lips, and Jonny echoes the motion instinctively, shivering as Patrick’s pupils dilate.

“Oh,” Patrick says. He lifts his hand from his stomach and presses his fingers back to Jonny’s mouth, circling his lips. They’re still wet from Jonny’s mouth—from Jonny’s _come_ , he realizes with a jolt of heat, tasting the sharp musk as Patrick pushes in.

Jonny clenches down tight and Patrick lets out a low, rumbling groan, fucking Jonny’s mouth with gentle slides of his fingers while Jonny rocks on his dick, heat building steadily through him. It’s a dizzying slide towards the edge. Jonny feels breathless and light, floating through warmth. It shivers up through him and he gasps around Patrick’s fingers, choking and tightening his thighs and dragging himself back to solid ground just before it’s too much. His cock leaps and spurts, messing up Patrick’s flushed chest, but when he relaxes again, he’s still desperate to come, aching to feel the fiery explosion that wipes him clean.

His eyes have fallen shut. He jumps when Patrick wraps his free hand around his cock. “You want to do that again?” Patrick asks, stroking him oh-so-gently. Jonny’s so hard, so over-sensitive it _hurts_ , and he has to bite down on Patrick’s knuckles, lashes fluttering as he tries to twist his head away. Patrick slides his thumb under Jonny’s jaw and tilts his chin down, waiting until Jonny’s managed to meet his gaze, and says, “Or do you want me to fuck you until you’re coming for real?”

“Mmph,” Jonny says, eyes going wide as his cock throbs. Patrick slides his hand all the way to the base and squeezes hard, pulling his fingers free. “Fuck me,” Jonny gasps out. “Fuck me, god, please.”

Patrick flips them. Jesus Christ, Patrick _flips_ them. Jonny’s so loose and still trembling but he has twenty pounds on Patrick and Patrick braces his feet on the bed and _shoves_. Jonny lands on his back with a gasp of surprise, reaching out for Patrick. Patrick gets his knees under him and follows, chest to chest. He wraps his hands under Jonny’s back and slides them up to grip his shoulders and tugs Jonny sharply down the bed and onto his cock.

Jonny yells and remembers and bites his own tongue but then Patrick’s mouth is on his, tongue sliding between his lips like his fingers had, grounding Jonny as Patrick takes him apart with relentless heavy thrusts. Jonny locks his ankles around Patrick’s waist and his arms behind his neck and holds on tight while Patrick pounds into him, perfect wet mouth a strangely soft counterpoint to the hard rhythm of his hips.

There’s nothing held back about this orgasm when it finally hits Jonny. He sobs into Patrick’s mouth, hands tight on Patrick’s shoulders, clenching down on Patrick’s dick and coming in perfect, shattering relief. Patrick fucks him through it, panting into his mouth, and then jerks his head away with a soft cry, pressing his face into the curve of Jonny’s neck and slamming in one last time.

He seems as wrecked as Jonny is after coming, little shudders going through him, and Jonny finds himself stroking a hand down his sweaty back and curling the other over the base of his skull. Patrick doesn’t move away when Jonny unwraps his legs, stretching them out beside Patrick’s knees with a relieved groan. He slumps down on top of Jonny, his cock slipping free.

“You have a no movement clause,” Jonny says, nonsequitur but suddenly all he can think of. “You’re not going to find out they’ve traded you from fucking Twitter.”

Patrick makes a wet sound against Jonny’s skin.

Jonny yanks on his curls, a nervous energy rushing through him, and says, “Are you—is there something you’re not telling me? Did they ask you to waive it? Patrick?”

Patrick rolls off Jonny with a grunting heave. “No,” he says, scrubbing a hand across his face. “Nobody’s said anything.”

“Then why are you freaking out?” Jonny asks.

“I’m not freaking out,” Patrick says. “Maybe I just like following the trades.”

“Maybe you haven’t been sleeping because something’s bothering you,” Jonny counters.

Patrick’s quiet beside him. Jonny turns his head and watches Patrick’s profile, how he draws his lip in to chew on it and then pushes it back out with his tongue, gaze fixed blankly on the ceiling.

“What if they did ask?” Patrick says finally, shutting his eyes tight and then opening them as he turns to Jonny. “If they said they needed to, for the good of the team—”

“—they won’t—”

“But they _could_ ,” Patrick insists. “And if it was to a good team, a contender, even…”

“You’d say no,” Jonny says firmly.

“Would I?” Patrick says with a shadowed smile. “Why?”

“Because you belong in Chicago,” Jonny says. “Because I don’t want to play here without you.”

“It’s all about you, huh?” Patrick says, smile softening, eyes crinkling up in the corners.

“It’s a compliment,” Jonny protests, pushing his hand into Patrick’s face until Patrick bites warningly. “How many other people do I care about like that, huh? Name one.”

Patrick shifts his shoulder against the bed, turning his head away again. “You’re pretty self-sufficient, I guess,” he says, reaching down to tug his sweats back up from where they’ve settled around his knees. “I envy you, man. If you got traded, you’d deal fine.”

Jonny doesn’t know if that’s true; he’s never thought about it. He’s a Hawk until his body gives out. There’s never been any doubt about that, not for him. But what he does know: “If I got traded, I’d still be playing without you.”

“True,” Patrick says. His face cracks with an enormous yawn, body arching in a stretch and then relaxing back into the bed. “Fuck, I’m ready for that nap.”

“Yeah,” Jonny says, heaving himself up and rolling off the bed; there’s warm wetness between his cheeks that’ll have to be dealt with before he gets any sleep. “I’ll be quick.”

“Not going anywhere,” Patrick says sleepily, crawling back up the bed and settling in. “Not yet, anyway.”

 

~

 

Jacob has his twenty-first birthday halfway through March, and the team holds a party for it. They’re pushing down the stretch, holding fast to the first wild-card slot and making a decent bid for third in the division, and Jonny’s finally feeling cautiously optimistic that this year won’t end after 82 games. It’s enough for him to loosen up and have a couple of drinks despite the creeping, late-season exhaustion. It’s their last three-day break of the season, and everybody’s taking advantage of a couple days of recover to let off some steam.

They’ve got a private room at the back of a nice restaurant with good food, and it’s a rowdy mix of teammates and the WAGs and Jacob and his girlfriend’s friends and family. Jacob’s been with his girl since he played in the OHL, one of those sickly-sweet teenage romances that Jonny didn’t understand at 21 and still doesn’t, if he’s honest. He can’t imagine being eighteen and knowing the person you were with was going to be right for you forever. His exes would probably say he can’t imagine ever being sure of that, but they’re not exactly impartial.

Still, Alexis is cheerful and laughs a lot and is currently giggling into Jacob’s shoulder as one of her friends—Hannah—hits on Patrick with the persistence of the soundly ignorant.

Jonny spots Patrick’s pained expression across the room and comes back to the table to watch, settling in the empty seat next to Hannah. He takes a sip of his beer and waggles his eyebrows at Patrick over her head. Patrick ignores him pointedly and nods at Hannah’s detailed account of her workout regimen.

“Sounds like you know what you’re doing,” Patrick says diplomatically when she pauses expectantly. He’s leaning into the table, away from where her hand is wandering up his back.

“I don’t know,” Hannah says with a sigh, tracing over the cap of Patrick’s shoulders and trailing down his bicep. Jonny struggles not to laugh as Alexis lets out a muffled giggle across the table. “I’ve got a trainer, but he’s, you know, a teacher. Those who can’t do, teach, right?”

“So they say,” Patrick says, eyes flicking up to meet Jonny’s narrowly.

“Allie is always saying Jacob’s the best teacher she has, because he’s an actual athlete.” Jonny imagines she’s fluttering her lashes, right about now, and leans back in his chair with a broad grin. Patrick doesn’t usually let it get this far, but then, maybe he was expecting the girl’s friend to intervene instead of collapsing in a useless heap of giggles. “Like you,” Hannah goes on, and oh, there she goes. “Whaddya think? Could you help me with my form? Maybe with a thank-you dinner after?”

“That’s, uh,” Patrick says with a cough. “Hannah, I’m sorry, I really don’t—you’re not my type,” he finishes in a flustered rush to the hiccuping sound of Alexis’ laughter.

Hannah pulls back and laughs herself. Jonny winces at the derision in her voice as she says, “Nice cop-out, asshole. No wonder Allie said you’re lonely.”

“Jesus, Alexis,” Jacob says.

“Oh come on,” Alexis says. “It was funny!”

“What’s funny?” Hannah says, glancing between Alexis and Patrick.

“I’m gay,” Patrick says evenly, pulling his beer across the table and lifting it to his mouth. “I didn’t mean to be rude, sorry. Most people know.”

“Oh,” Hannah says, still stiff. “You’re the gay one.”

Patrick raises his brows and puts his drink back down. “Yep,” he says.

“Well,” she says, pushing back from the table, “if you’d rather take it like a bitch than go home with me, your loss.”

Patrick’s jaw tightens. Jonny laughs, and Hannah turns towards him with cold expression, daring him to intervene. As if Jonny cares. He learned years ago how to deal with anyone who thinks they’re entitled to his—or Patrick’s, in this case—attention.

“Oh man, have you got that wrong,” Jonny says, grinning shark-like at her unamused face. “Kaner? Definitely a top.”

“Christ,” Patrick says, elbows on the table and head in his hands and yeah, okay. Maybe Jonny took that a little far in order to stick it to this asshole, but what a fucking dumb thing to say. Jonny’s not gonna sit around while anyone goes after Patrick like that.

Hannah makes a disgusted face and leaves, Alexis chasing after to apologize, probably. Jacob makes a ‘what can you do’ face at Patrick and follows, leaving Jonny looking concernedly at Patrick, who turns his head to glare at Jonny, forehead still pressed to his hands.

“Way to miss the point, douchebag,” Patrick snaps. “Glad to know I’m not a pussy just cause I stick it in on the regular. What does that make you?”

“Hey,” Jonny says with a jolt of shame. “C’mon, she was ridiculous—you know I don’t think that. I’m not gay, but it’s not like I have anything against guys who, you know.”

“Bottom,” Patrick fills in flatly, straightening up. “Like you do.”

“Well, but I’m not—” Jonny says, glancing anxiously around the room and then back at Patrick. “I guess technically, but it’s, you know.” He shrugs uneasily. “Not like that makes me one.”

Patrick’s cheek twitches, his brows pulling together, and then his face smoothes out. He lets out a soft “fuck” pushing back from the table abruptly. “I need another drink.”

“I’ll take a beer,” Jonny says, holding up his empty.

“Nope,” Patrick says, and heel-turns towards the bar, leaving Jonny blinking after him in uneasy confusion.

 

~

 

Patrick ended up giving Jonny the slip at the end of the party and then bails out of their usual off-day lunch by text the next morning. Jonny spends a few minutes contemplating showing up anyway, but they have been pretty tight in each others’ space since they started fucking. No reason not to take a day or two. Besides, they’re going to need all their energies for the run-up to the playoffs. Every game is important right now, and Jonny’s feeling the mental pressure right along-side the bodily stresses and strains.

It’s at practice the day after that that Jonny starts to wonder if Patrick’s sudden radio-silence is more than him feeling the same. He’s his usual loose self on the ice. Jonny watches out of the corner of his eye as Patrick flips between narrow focus on himself during each drill to careful observation of the team as a whole, pausing to give out soft, easy advice. But when Jonny slides in beside him, Patrick shuts up and finds something else to do. And the powerplay is a mess, and while that’s been true the whole damn season, Jonny doesn’t think Patrick’s ever missed him with so many passes in one drill.

After Q finishes chewing out the whole unit, Jonny taps Patrick in the shins with his stick and says, “We gonna talk this out?”

Patrick meets his eyes properly, his first, startled look followed by a flicker of chagrin, before his face smooths out into an expressionless mask. “The powerplay, or…”

“ _Or_ ,” Jonny says gravely. “Your place or mine?”

Patrick glances across the rink, jaw working. “Yours,” he says.

“Alright,” Jonny says, straightening up and rolling his shoulders until the tension recedes.

Jonny ends up stuck in a long conversation with Kitch after practice, and by the time he gets to his condo Patrick’s let himself in and has heated up a couple pre-made dinners. Jonny slides in next to him at the island with a grateful “thanks” and starts in on his pork tenderloin and potatoes.

“Whatever,” Patrick says, which, wow, he’s not Canadian, but he’s got better manners than _that._

Jonny takes another few bites, steeling himself, then says, “Is this about the party?”

“Yup,” Patrick says, head bent over his food.

“Okay, well,” Jonny says, watching the movement of Patrick’s jaw as he chews, “I am sorry about that. I was out of line.”

Patrick’s eyes flick over to him. “Yeah?” he says uncertainly.

Jonny straightens up, nodding decisively. “Yeah. I shouldn’t have said you topped, not like that. That’s nobody’s business but yours.” He pauses, fork lodged in a slice of pork. “And I really didn’t mean to insult all gay men who bottom or whatever.”

“All gay—” Patrick inhales sharply and then lets it go in a long, slow release of air, palm passing across his jaw as he stares at Jonny. “You realize you bottom, right? Like, if we’re talking about who’d rather take a dick up their ass than go home with a pretty girl, you’re gonna give me a solid run for my money.”

“She wasn’t talking about me,” Jonny protests. He shifts on the stool uneasily. “I’m not gay _._ ”

“Newsflash, Toews,” Patrick says, waving a hand at Jonny unsteadily and then drawing it back in to grip at his own thigh. “She was talking shit about men who fuck other men, which right now, sure as fuck includes you.”

“That’s different,” Jonny says, scrubbing at the flush spreading down the back of his neck. “I’m straight.”

“Are you for real?” Patrick says, pale and brittle. “We’ve been fucking since January, how the hell have you not figured this out, yet?”

Figured what out? Jonny gapes at Patrick, who’s holding himself rigid as he stares Jonny down. “But—listen,” Jonny says, trying for firm despite feeling utterly lost. “I like what we do, obviously. I like getting fucked, but you said it yourself! It’s what my body likes, it doesn’t make me _gay_. I’m not gonna—you and me, this is just an...an aberration.”

“An aberration,” Patrick repeats flatly. “Fuck you.”

Jonny blows out a breath, his cheeks warming up. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Patrick shakes his head, sliding off the stool. “I can’t do this,” he says. “You wanna be a dickhead about it, fine, but I can’t—I’m not your fucking aberration.”

“Patrick, c’mon,” Jonny says, following Patrick back to the entryway. “I thought you were cool with this.”

“I was cool with this,” Patrick says darkly, pulling on his jacket with vicious shoves of his arms through the sleeves, “when I thought you did just want a dick in your ass. I was _cool with this_ when it turned out that hey, you also were down to suck my dick! I was plenty-fucking-cool with this when it turned out you didn’t mind jerking me off, or sucking on my fingers, or kissing me, but holy shit, I am not cool with you thinking none of that makes you even a little bit gay. Because guess what, motherfucker, it’s pretty damn gay!”

“I—” Jonny says, watching with an open mouth as Patrick breathes heavily, staring Jonny down with a furious glare, fists clenched at his sides like he’s already dropped his gloves and is about to go for it. “It’s not like that for me.”

“Clearly,” Patrick says through his teeth.

“Sorry,” Jonny says, hapless. “I—yeah. I’m sorry.”

Patrick sucks his lips between his teeth, biting them white, and then nods sharply. “Okay. I’m gonna go.”

“Right,” Jonny says. “I’m—”

“I got it,” Patrick interrupts and lets himself out the door without another word.

That—shit, Jonny thinks. Shit.

 

~

 

When his personal life gets rough during the season, Jonny’s usual strategy is to ignore it and focus on hockey. It’s ended more than one relationship, and pissed off his mother more times than he can count, but it’s always at least been viable. The people that really matter to him understand that his emotional energy has to go to the game, especially at times when each one matters, and wobbling down the stretch Jonny’s fiercely aware they can’t afford to be distracted.

But this—this is _Patrick_. Jonny can’t leave him behind at his condo, he can’t ignore his texts, he can’t look across the ice and not see him. He’s off balance and distracted at morning practice, tripping over his own feet, a step behind every pass, shooting high and wide on every drill. Patrick’s still ignoring him, with a frosty edge that Jonny can tell everybody else is picking up on, and shit, that’s even worse. He can’t fuck up the team over this, not now.

It follows him right through the game against the Oilers, impervious to Duncs’ side-eyes and Q’s growling “fucking get it the fuck together, Jonny.” The game is the kind of shit-show that everybody but the fans hates, 6-5 for Edmonton going down to the last five minutes, when Jonny turns badly and gets slammed painfully into the boards.

It’s not until he’s back on his feet, shoulder aching but, he thinks, just bruised, that he realizes it’s Seabs helping him up.

“Thanks for that,” Jonny says sourly, waving off the hovering ref and pushing away from Seabs and his worried frown.

Seabs keeps ahold of his jersey and slides with him, ducking his head to peer at Jonny through his visor. “What the hell, Jon, are you blind? I was right there.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jonny says, cracking his neck and nodding distractedly at Q, who’s giving him an ‘on or off?’ gesture. “You coulda pulled it.”

“As if,” Seabs snorts. “You gonna get your head in this game?”

Jonny meets his eyes at that, brows raised. “You really want that? You haven’t won this yet.”

“Hey, I’m not saying put the puck in our net,” Seabs says with a grin, “but I’d rather not give you a concussion, kid.”

Jonny snorts and shoves away, circling around to take the face-off. He manages to stay with it enough to not go down embarrassingly again until Teuvo ties it up on a cross-crease feed from Patrick, thank god. Jonny puts his shootout attempt right over the crossbar, but Darls shuts the door and Patrick wins it with a slick backhand deke that would give Jonny a hockey-boner if his dick weren’t so sadly confused right now.

“Sweet moves, eh,” he tries in the fistbump line, nodding at Patrick.

Patrick's gaze slides right over his face, and all Jonny gets back is an abrupt "yeah." Jonny's not sure what his face looks like, but judging by the expression of embarrassed sympathy on Darls' face, it's pretty crushed.

"Uh," Darls says, patting Jonny carefully on the shoulder with his catcher. "Good win, Jon."

"Thanks," Jonny says, distracted. "I mean, thanks to you," he corrects, flushing. "Way to show up tall. Big. Stand up big. I mean—"

"I got it," Darls interrupts. "Maybe skip the media today, eh?"

"Yeah," Jonny agrees, following him into the bench and trying to catch Patrick's eye where he's waiting for the three stars with Teuvo. No luck, and he tromps down the hall sore and dejected.

 

~

 

“That is the worst game of hockey I’ve seen you play since Detroit,” Seabs says, settling into Jonny’s lounge chair with a groan.

“You know I play Detroit every season, right?” Jonny says, sprawled upside-down on his couch with an ice-pack tucked under his shoulderblade. “Even two whole games.”

“Wow, watch the sass, Captain Bitchface,” Seabs says, flicking his bottle cap at Jonny. “You gonna tell me who pissed in your cheerios?”

“Me, I think,” Jonny says moodily, picking at the label on his Gatorade.

“I’m shocked,” Seabs says drily.

Jonny tips his head at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Seabs shrugs. “Best person in the world at getting under your skin is you, Jonny. Nobody else really gets to you.”

“Am I really that bad?” Jonny says with a frown.

“Is it a bad thing?” Seabs says mildly.

“It makes me sound like a jerk,” Jonny says. “Like I don’t care what anybody else thinks.”

Seabs rolls his eyes. “Oh, c’mon, you know that’s not true. You need me telling you what a selfless, caring Captain you are?”

“Yeah, but—about not hockey things,” Jonny says awkwardly.

Seabs opens his eyes comically wide. “About _what_?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Jonny says, rolling his shoulder with a groan. “I pissed somebody off. Somebody who matters to me, like, a lot.”

“So, Kaner,” Seabs says.

“Hey,” Jonny says. “Plenty of people matter to me.”

“Sure, but none who’d throw you off your game so bad. Remember that time that girl, fuck, what was her name—Mariah?”

Jonny groans. “Mara,” he says, covering his face with one hand.

“Mara, right. She completely trashed your place after you dumped her.”

“Yeah,” Jonny says, lips twitching as he remembers it. “Came back from morning skate to a stick in the middle of my TV.”

Seabs laughs. “You got two goals that night, didn’t even blink.”

Jonny sighs and reaches around to tug the damp ice pack out from underneath him, dropping it on the floor with a wet thunk. “I really fucked it up,” he says, voice rough. “I dunno if he’s gonna forgive me.”

“Oh, please,” Seabs says. “Kaner’s forgiven you a hundred times.”

“Not for anything like _this_ ,” Jonny says darkly.

“Did you knock up one of his sisters?” Seabs says, and then holds up a hand at Jonny’s glare. “Well, I’m guessing! You’re not giving me a lot to go on here.”

“I, uh,” Jonny fumbles, not sure how much he’s willing to admit to. “I kind of was a shithole about, uh. Him being gay.” Jonny being not gay, more to the point, but he’s not sure where the hell to start to explain that.

“Again?” Seabs says.

Jonny sits up quickly, abs protesting until he turns and settles back into the couch with a thump. “Again?” he repeats, voice pitched high. “Wha—I was never a shithole about it!”

“Eh,” Seabs says tipping his gatorade bottle back and forth in his palm and then draining the last of it. “Shithole is maybe too strong a word. Dumbfuck, maybe.”

Jonny stares at Seabs, wide-eyed. “What are you talking about?”

Seabs watches him thoughtfully for a long moment. Jonny’s stomach does swoop of apprehension, throat working as he swallows some more gatorade, wetting his dry mouth.

“You did this thing,” Seabs says slowly, “after Kaner came out? Where you sort of...decided you were going to support him by becoming his best friend.”

“Yeah,” Jonny says slowly. It wasn’t quite like that—he’d known Patrick was gay months before he came out, but it’s true that when Patrick decided to announce it, Jonny’d felt protective of him. “Is that bad?”

“It was a bit much,” Seabs says. “You were all over him, man, trying to be his keeper, defending his honour, whatever. You’re a good guy, Jon, but back then it felt like you were mostly trying to be a good Captain, more than anything else. I don’t think he appreciated it.”

Jonny’s stricken, breath coming in tight little puffs, his fingers denting the plastic bottle until it creaks. “He was…” his voice comes out in a harsh rasp. He takes another drink and sets the bottle on the coffee table, resting his elbows on his knees. “Jesus, Seabs. His family was giving him crap about it, he was dealing with assholes on the ice suddenly thinking they had the right to chirp him about it every fucking game, he was trying to keep a happy face to the press—what was I supposed to do? Let him deal with everything alone? Huh?”

Seabs sighs, slouching down into the chair. “I’m not saying you weren’t trying, or that you didn’t mean it. Obviously you did. I’m just saying I don’t think Kaner thought you were doing it for _him_ , at first. But then…” he shrugs, “you didn’t quit. You’re still here, and you guys are as tight as you’ve ever been. Duncs says the rookies call you the old marrieds, now.”

“Mom and dad,” Jonny says reflexively, dropping his head between his shoulders and pressing his hands to his neck. His shoulder hurts, and he dips his palm to rub against the sore muscle. “He’s my best friend, Seabs.”

“You wore him down,” Seabs offers with a smile. “Who’s mom?”

“Me, obviously,” Jonny says, dragging up a weak smile. He’s utterly drained, ready to sleep for a decade and at the same time, anxious to see Patrick and try to fix this. “As if I’d let anyone call him mom.”

“As if he needs you protecting him,” Seabs points out, and Jonny makes a face. “Listen, Jonny. Maybe you woke up one day and decided Kaner was your best friend. You do that shit, you’re nuts like that. Either you’re all in or totally fucking clueless. But that’s not everyone, and that’s definitely not Kaner.”

“Yeah,” Jonny says with a heavy sigh. “For sure.”

“Whatever you did this time,” Seabs says reassuringly, “he’ll get over it. He can’t resist your ugly mug, trust me.”

 

~

 

Jonny takes his ugly mug over to Patrick’s the next morning and hits the buzzer with his elbow after the doorman lets him up. He also brings two coffees, four fancy-ass breakfast sandwiches with avocado and red onion and that freaking amazing red pepper jelly from the place that’s much, much closer to Johnny’s Ice House than Patrick’s condo, and a bag of croissants. He _also_ has a potted flower plant tucked precariously into the curve of his elbow, manfully orange and apparently impossible to kill.

“What the fuck?” Patrick says, looking him up and down.

“Hey,” Jonny says, two fingers of his right hand straining where they’re holding up the bag of sandwiches. “Can I come in?”

“Are those flowers?” Patrick says. “Are you dying?”

“It’s a potted plant,” Jonny corrects. “Not dying, though. Me or the plant.”

“Oh-kay,” Patrick says slowly, stepping back from the doorway to let Jonny through. Jonny deposits the flowers and coffee on the side-table with a relieved sigh, transferring the bag to his newly freed left hand and shaking out his right, the bag of croissants crackling loudly.

“Shit, those are heavy,” he says. His fingers bug him on-and-off on the regular, ever since he broke the middle and ring finger real good on a face-off gone wrong. “From Luciano’s, though, so worth it.”

“You drove all the way out there?” Patrick says, arms crossing over his chest. His tone is flat and drier than sand, but Jonny can see the telltale twitch of his cheek that tells him Patrick’s this close to smiling.

“And bought you flowers,” Jonny says solemnly. “I mean, a plant. And coffee. There’s croissants, too,” he adds, handing over the paper bag to a now visibly-amused Patrick.

“Of course there is,” Patrick says, toast in one hand, bag of croissants in the other, bare-footed and now properly smiling and Jonny can’t help grinning back, even though he’s nervous as fuck about this.

“All or nothing,” Jonny says lamely.

Patrick snorts. “Oh, fine,” he says, eyes flicking between the flowers and Jonny. “C’mon, let’s eat.”

They settle in at Patrick’s dining table, half-covered in signed photos and mail and the sports section of three newspapers. Patrick brings out plates and divvies up the sandwiches between them. When he settles in Jonny takes a mouthful of croissant and a sip of coffee and a deep, deep breath.

“You were right,” he says, lips buttery slick. He rubs the back of his hand across his mouth as Patrick watches him, peeling layers of croissant away and eating them neatly. “All that sex was pretty fucking gay.”

“And you’re only just realizing this?” Patrick says.

Jonny sighs and slumps down in his chair, popping the second half of the croissant in his mouth. It has the advantage of forcing him to chew and swallow while he tries to figure out how to explain it. “Do I sound stupid if I say yes?”

“Yes,” Patrick says solemnly, and then cracks a grin when Jonny scowls at him. “C’mon, Jonny. You were so fucking into it, all of it. I thought for sure you’d figured that out.”

Jonny shrugs stiffly, thumbing at a drop of coffee on the rim of his cup. “I think—shit, I don’t know. I had it in my head that it was an exception?”

“An aberration,” Patrick says cooly.

Jonny shakes his head, flushing. “That was—I’m an asshole, fuck. I meant that it was _you_ , so I wasn’t thinking about it being a _guy_ , you know?”

“So if it was anybody else, you wouldn’t be comfortable enough?” Patrick says, frown lingering around the edges of his mouth. “Because I thought—it wasn’t ever about me, Jon. You wanted to be fucked and that seemed like fun for me—and it was, okay? But it wasn’t about me.”

Jonny takes a sip of coffee and then puts it down, his palms too sweaty without having to hold onto the hot drink. He rubs at his neck, pulse racing underneath. “I don’t know how to explain it,” Jonny says helplessly, looking at Patrick with wide eyes. “I kept thinking of it as my body, not as a mental thing. You got me off, my body was into it—it didn’t seem complicated, you know?”

“It doesn’t have to be complicated,” Patrick says, shifting in his seat. “But that doesn’t make you straight.”

“I really never looked at a guy before,” Jonny says, frowning down at his neglected sandwiches. “It didn’t make sense, you know, for it to...turn on, like that. Because of this one stupid thing about my ass.”

“This one _awesome_ thing,” Patrick corrects. “But if it was just you having the Stanley Cup of prostates—”

“—I know,” Jonny says, cutting him off and looking up. “It wasn’t just that. I liked everything you did, what you said, how you...even how you looked, eventually.”

“Stockholmed,” Patrick say, making a tiny fistpump and then dropping his hand to the table, fingers spreading wide as his expression goes serious. “I didn’t really mean to try to change you.”

Jonny rolls his eyes. “Could you? Besides, I think it’s more...I never thought about a guy that way, but I also didn’t know it could be good like that. Maybe it was just...latent.”

“Latent bisexuality?” Patrick says, tilting his head. He picks up half of his sandwich and holds it absently in front of his face. “I guess that makes sense.”

Jonny blinks. “Does it?”

“Sure,” Patrick says. “Dude, if I liked girls, you think I wouldn’t have focused on that bit? I fucking tried, even though I didn’t.”

Jonny considers that, following Patrick’s lead and starting in on his sandwiches. He tries to imagine another guy fucking him the way Patrick does, and it makes his skin crawl. But then, imagining a girl fucking him does the same, so maybe Patrick’s wrong about it not being about him. Jonny can’t imagine letting himself go the way he does when getting fucked with anybody else.

The thought makes him pause. “Have I been using you?” Jonny says, avocado sliding out of his sandwich where he’s gripping it too tightly, landing on the plate in a mushy green heap. “For sex?”

Patrick stares at him, open-mouthed. “Have you been using me for sex?” he says, voice dipping low and rising back up. “Which one of us talked his straight best friend into bending over for him?”

Jonny wrinkles his nose. “Not so straight,” he reminds Patrick.

“You’ve decided that now?” Patrick says, shock softening into eye-crinkling amusement. “Just like that?”

Jonny cracks his neck and scoops up the lost avocado with his fingers, popping it into his mouth. “I guess so,” he says. “And it was your idea, but it was because I was freaking out about the whole sensitive prostate thing.”

“Right, so I selflessly volunteered to stick my dick in your ridiculous ass and watch you have mind-meltingly hot orgasms on it,” Patrick says wryly, leaning into the table. “Jesus, Jonny, if either of us took advantage, it was definitely me.”

“It’s really that good for you?” Jonny says dubiously. “I know I did—stuff—sometimes, but a lot of it was just,” he flushes ducking his head and then forcing him to look back up at Patrick’s face, “me getting off.”

Patrick watches him thoughtfully, licking jelly off his fingers. “Do you know why I like topping?” he asks. Jonny bites on the inside of his cheek, uncertain, and Patrick adds, “In the bigger sense, not sticking it in.”

“I…” Jonny trails off. He has a guess, but it’s weird to say out loud, even as Patrick kicks his ankle under the table and makes a scrunched-up face at him. “You like being in control,” he says, reluctant, because once upon a time he would have said so did he. It’s hard to think about how much he likes giving it up, even to Patrick. “You like making the play.”

“That’s why I do it, most of the time,” Patrick admits. “But that’s not what makes it’s good for me. It’s good because I like the thrill of making a guy feel good. It gets me off, getting somebody else off, and shit, Jonny, I’ve never seen anybody like it like you do. Not just me fucking you, but the way you look when I touch you, when I talk dirty to you...” He shakes his head like he’s clearing water out of his pinked-up ears and gives Jonny a lopsided grin. “You get the picture.”

Jonny swallows. “I’m, uh, glad.” He downs the last of his cooling coffee. “So we’re okay?” he says roughly, eyes fixed at his cup. “I really am sorry for laughing at what Hannah said. And for—not getting it. At all.”

Patrick makes a soft, throaty sound. Jonny looks up to find him swiping his tongue along his lip, tipped back on his chair and watching Jonny with a contemplative expression.

“Well,” Patrick says, sounding distinctly unimpressed. Jonny’s stomach flips in trepidation, “The apology might not have been enough, but you did bring me a potted plant.”

Jonny winces. “That was really lame, huh?”

“It was really _you_ ,” Patrick says with a soft snort, letting his chair fall forward with a clack. “Yeah, we’re good.”

“Good,” Jonny says fervently, relief coursing through him. “We really can’t afford another game like last night.”

Patrick frowns for a second before he catches the smirk Jonny’s barely holding back, jaw clenched and lips twitching. Patrick’s laughter is deep and loud and drains away the last lingering tension Jonny’s been holding in his body.

Except, of course, for the sexual tension from not getting any for six days. Jonny isn’t sure if apologizing, if owning up to his nascent bisexuality means they’ll go back to fucking on the regular, but listening to Patrick explain how good Jonny was for him definitely gives Jonny hope. And a semi, though he wills that away as they clean up from lunch and settle in to studying their next couple of opponents.

They spend a while sprawled out on the couch, going over game-tape—Jonny watching centremen take face-offs and making set plays and PP set-ups, Patrick narrowing in on recurrent d-zone coverage lapses and the subtle tendencies of opposing goaltenders to go down early or too late. It’s familiar and comfortable and should be soothing, but every time Patrick leans into Jonny to watch a play unfold or knocks him in the thigh to get his attention, Jonny can’t help but wonder if he’s allowed to push for more.

He ends up edging himself slowly down the couch, taking up less and less space in an effort to put some between him and Patrick’s body. Patrick, however, keeps taking up more, sprawling along the couch. He shifts about, feet knocking into Jonny, thick shoulders bunching as he lifts his arms and stretches, thighs sprawling open—

“Eyes up here, buddy.”

Jonny snaps his gaze up to Patrick’s face, who’s chewing on the end of his pen and staring steadily at Jonny’s iPad where it’s balanced on his stomach. “Sorry,” Jonny mumbles, turning back to his laptop sheepishly.

“Uhuh,” Patrick says. “You know you’re gonna be thirty next month, right?”

Jonny sneaks a glance at him and shifts his laptop down his thighs and off his dick. “So?” he says challengingly.

“So you probably shouldn’t have the sex drive of a rookie,” Patrick says, flicking his gaze up and grinning around the tip of the pen, all teeth.

“I’m in good shape,” Jonny protests reflexively, feeling too warm in his t-shirt and track pants. Patrick’s toes prod sharply at his thigh, digging into a bruise, and he yelps, slapping at Patrick’s foot. “Ow, fuck,” he says. “Careful with those.”

Of course, Patrick’s solution is to put his feet right _in_ Jonny’s lap and slide the ball of one foot right over the thickening line of Jonny’s dick. Jonny inhales and snaps his computer shut, sliding it to the side to keep from dumping it on the floor.

“Your feet are not hot,” Jonny complains, slouching down into the couch and watching in aroused horror as Patrick strokes him carefully. Patrick’s feet are knobbly and callused and winter-pale and Jonny has nothing whatsoever resembling a foot fetish, but the steady pressure and the giddy relief that Patrick _is_ going to touch him again overrule any logical objection. He tips his head back and groans, fingers sliding around the cool soft skin of Patrick’s ankle to thumb at the sharp jut of bone.

Patrick lets out a soft snort. “See? Teenager.” He pushes at the inside of Jonny’s thigh with his other foot, forcing him to spread, and presses carefully against Jonny’s balls with the heel of his foot. Jonny tightens his grip on Patrick’s ankle, eyelashes fluttering.

“It is kind of like that,” he admits, shivering at the rough drag of fabric over his cock. “Puberty, all over again. Figuring out—fuck—what’s good, what isn’t, what you never even,” his breath hitches at a hard press under the head of his dick, “never even thought of at all.” He arches his hips up and then collapses back into the couch when Patrick pulls his feet back. “All because of that fucking blow job and your stupid box of toys.”

He tips his head to the side. Patrick’s watching him thoughtfully, knees pulled up, that fucking pen still between his lips. Jonny can see that he’s sliding his tongue over it inside his mouth, working at it absently until he pulls it out and drops it into the cushions. “You should go get it.”

Jonny pulls down his eyebrows. “The pen?”

“What?” Patrick says, looking equally confused. “No, the box of toys.”

Jonny flushes, a full-body rush that has his soles flattening on the cool wood floor like he’s trying to push the heat away. “Yeah?” he croaks. “To do what?”

Patrick’s smirk catches at his lips and spreads across his face, lighting him up, lighting _Jonny_ up. “’Bout time I saw what I paid for in action, don’t you think?”

 

~

 

It’s an awkward position, no doubt. Jonny’s got his knees spread as wide as the couch will allow, one arm braced on the padded leather arm, the other stretched down his back. It’s been almost two months since he’s had to do this himself, and the required contortion is adding to his feeling of exposure. Patrick’s standing beside him, absently pushing his jeans-covered dick into Jonny’s hip as he slides his hands across Jonny’s skin.

“Yeah, c’mon babe,” Patrick says softly, sliding his fingers along the curve of Jonny’s ass cheek and tugging, spreading him open. “Show me how you do it, I wanna see.”

“Ungh,” Jonny says, dropping his head to rest against his forearm. He shifts his grip on the dildo, the medium-sized silky-smooth one, because it’s been a week. That, and while he think he can handle fucking himself for Patrick, the idea of spreading his legs and sliding his fingers inside is too overwhelming to imagine.

Patrick’s fingers slip down, stroking at the edge of Jonny’s hole, slick with lube and aching to be opened up. He feels himself spasm at Patrick’s touch, dildo dipping down and bumping up against his fingers.

“Jesus, you really want it,” Patrick says, sounding awed. He thumbs across Jonny’s hole, firm little passes that make Jonny’s breath hitch in his chest, and then down over his perineum, pushing hard until Jonny lets go on a rough groan. “Have you, since last time?”

Jonny shakes his head. “No,” he says, sliding the head of the dildo down until it settles against his hole. “Was too—wasn’t feeling it.”

“Then you’re gonna go fast,” Patrick says, matter-of-fact.

Jonny’s long stopped being bothered by the speed at which he comes like this, so he grunts in agreement and pushes in, locking the muscles in his back and thighs to keep from rocking back instinctively.

Patrick keeps his balls held carefully in his palm, thumb rubbing back and forth along the stretch skin behind them. At the vivid press against his prostate, Jonny’s eyelids go heavy and his control slips, body sagging and knee sliding on the slippery leather. Patrick pushes his own thigh up against Jonny’s, holding him in place.

“I got it, I got it,” Jonny gasps, pulling his knees in and taking a steadying breath. Patrick lets go of his sac and runs his hand up the arch of Jonny’s spine, settling at the base of his neck with an encouraging squeeze. Jonny starts moving, working his wrist and forearm to pull the dildo out and shove it back in forcefully, each hard press inside making him flush head to toe, blood filling his cock and singing in his ears.

“Good?” he hears Patrick say.

“Yeah,” he gasps out, mouthing wetly at his arm. He turns his head, trying to see Patrick, but the press of the dildo has him curling in instead, eyes falling shut on a moan. “Pat, Pat,” he says, flexing his hips to get a heavy rhythm going. “I want, can you—”

Patrick ducks down and presses his mouth to Jonny’s straining, bruised shoulder, teeth digging in enough to cut through the pleasure and make Jonny shudder in pain instead. “What do you want?” Pat says, squeezing his neck and skimming his fingers up Jonny’s heaving ribcage.

“I—oh fuck,” Jonny says, clamping down on the dildo as he comes hard, a bright rush of an orgasm that catches him off-guard and defenseless against the full-body pulse. Patrick wraps an arm under his chest and presses him back against the couch while he shakes, shooting in thick spurts.

When he’s stopped shivering, Patrick hauls him up onto his haunches and twists his fingers into Jonny’s hair, pulling his head back. Jonny lets him, limp and loose and somehow still so god damned needy of Patrick’s touch that he whines in his throat at the first press of Patrick’s lips to his mouth. He lets Patrick lick in, touching lightly at Jonny’s tongue with his own, and finds Patrick’s thigh to squeeze tightly. The dildo’s sunk deep inside, a hard pressure that Jonny knows will soon tip from overwhelming to not nearly enough.

“What do you want?” Patrick repeats, breath hot on Jonny’s lips. Jonny opens his eyes and meets Patrick’s bright blue gaze, shimmering and hot.

“Your cock,” Jonny gasps.

“You’ve already got a cock in your ass,” Patrick says. He slides his hand down Jonny’s chest and circles his dick, giving it a tight stroke and then letting go. “Try again.”

“Let me suck it, then,” Jonny says wildly.

Patrick chews on his bottom lip, looking far too thoughtful for a guy with a boner making the best of a bad situation in his jeans. “You know you don’t have to prove anything to me,” he says carefully, letting go of Jonny’s scalp and stroking down his spine. “If you don’t want to suck cock, I’m not gonna be mad.”

“I—” Jonny swallows, shaking his head to try to clear it. He centres himself, tightening his abs and straightening up, pulling himself out of the thick cloud of arousal. “I want to. I liked it, before, I just didn’t…” he trails off, rubbing his hand along his jawline and looking away.

Patrick leans down and knocks his head against Jonny’s, and Jonny snorts and pushes him away, twisting on the couch until he can unfold his unsteady thighs and sit. He stretches his legs out on either side of Patrick, heels sliding on the floor, and the dildo slides inside him, sending shocky bursts of pleasure up his spine.

“Didn’t what?” Patrick says.

“Hm?” Jonny says, blinking up at Patrick. “Oh, uh.” He tries to remember his train of thought as his hips shift instinctively, dildo rocking back and forth inside in an easy grind. “I tried to think about how much you liked it,” he says, rubbing at his thighs and staring resolutely at Patrick’s knees. “And forget how much I did.”

“Huh,” Patrick says, and before Jonny can wonder if that’s good or bad, he’s kneeling over Jonny’s lap and pulling out his cock from his jeans.

“Sweet,” Jonny says, sinking into the cushions and looking up at Patrick with a crinkled smile. He drops his head back on the couch and settles his hands on the back of Patrick’s thighs, thumbing at the fine soft hairs over firm muscle. Patrick slides in closer, bracing himself with a hand beside Jonny’s head, and works his cock in his fist, a gentle tug under the wide head.

“What did you like about it?” Patrick says, voice mild. If Jonny couldn't see the precum beading at the tip of his dick in high-definition, he’d think him entirely unaffected.

Jonny lets his eyes fall shut. He’s done this three times, now, but the last two were more perfunctory than overwhelming, purposefully taking Patrick’s cock in his mouth for the express purpose of getting him hard enough to fuck Jonny. Nothing’s come close to that first time, when he offered and Patrick gave him a shocked yes and then proceeded to take him apart with his own filthy mouth.

“I liked that you told me what you liked,” Jonny admits, scratching his nails against Patrick’s skin nervously.

“I tell you what I like a lot,” Patrick says. “When I’m fucking you, I do it all the time.”

Jonny opens his eyes and blinks up at Patrick where he’s haloed in the morning light pouring through his windows. “Yeah, but when you’re fucking me, I can’t _think_ ,” he says, eyes dropping to Patrick’s thick cock, a couple inches from his mouth. “It’s too much to really pay attention, you know?”

Patrick nods thoughtfully and brings his cock up to press against Jonny’s lower lip, wetting it and then pulling away again. “Alright then,” Patrick says. Jonny shivers at the low hum of his voice, rich with promise. “I’m gonna fuck your mouth with my dick and tell you how pretty you look taking it, how’s that sound?”

“Uhn,” Jonny says, biting sharply at his lower lip as he clenches down on the dildo. “I don’t—”

“I don’t want to choke you,” Patrick says, ignoring Jonny’s words completely in favour of sliding his thumb to the corner of Jonny’s mouth and pressing until Jonny opens. “So keep your hands on me and push back if you need to, okay?”

Jonny nods, tongue sliding against the ball of Patrick’s thumb as he urges Jonny’s mouth open and then pulls out his thumb and pushes in with his cock. “There you go, gorgeous,” Patrick breathes, cupping his jaw and tilting his head up as Jonny sucks at the head. “Taking me in, so easy for it like you always are.”

Jonny rocks his hips to move the dildo inside him as Patrick fucks his mouth, working his cock incrementally deeper into Jonny’s mouth. He keeps up a murmur of words that flood over Jonny’s skin and make him go hot with embarrassment, telling Jonny how perfect he looks with a cock in his mouth, another pretty hole for Patrick to fuck so good. Jonny shivers, fingers spasming on Patrick’s thighs. He likes this, he likes this, he—fuck, he can’t stop thinking about what that means. He’s a cocksucker, listening to Patrick talk about how pretty Jonny is, and Jonny _likes_ it.

Patrick’s careful with it, oblivious to the rush of Jonny’s frantic thoughts, running his fingers over the stretched column of Jonny’s throat and retreating every time Jonny’s hands twitch on his thighs. Jonny wants him to speed up, to stop being so damn _careful_ and go for it. The gentle press of his dick and hands and his sweet words are too much. Jonny wants to drown them out, but when Patrick slips deeper and pushes against the back of his throat, Jonny can’t take it and he chokes, his eyes watering and throat seizing up.

“Fuck.” He coughs, pulling his head away. His body clenches down again on the dildo, a spike of pleasure a counterpoint to the unpleasant sensation of choking. “Fuck, sorry,” he says, wiping his damp cheek on his shoulder.

Patrick settles down on his haunches and runs his thumbs under Jonny’s eyes, wiping away the moisture that’s gathered there. “What are you apologizing for?”

“You can’t go very hard,” Jonny says hoarsely. “I’m not very good at this.”

“I can always fuck your ass if I want to go hard,” Patrick says with a quick grin that falls away even quicker. “Jesus, Jonny, you look so fucking good like this. How are you stressing?”

Jonny lifts a shoulder stiffly, looking down at their cocks, Patrick’s fat, spit-slicked dick sliding against the long, narrower curve of his own. There’s a pool of cum gathering on his abs, fucked out of him by the persistent movement of the dildo. It’s a tableau that all at once arouses and terrifies him. “It’s new, I guess,” he mumbles, fingers picking nervously at the edge of a cushion. “It’s not, not just...”

“Oh,” Patrick says, tone high. “Oh, I see.”

Jonny glances up at him, red-faced and mortified, and finds Patrick giving him this careful look that twists his humiliation into straight-up infuriation. “Fuck off,” he snaps, twisting under Patrick. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” Patrick says, sliding off of Jonny’s lap.

Jonny reaches down and tugs the dildo out, exhaling harshly as it slides free, and drops it on the floor. “Like, like—oh poor Jon, freaking out about liking dick.”

“Are you?” Patrick says carefully.

“I don’t…” Jonny covers his face with his hands and takes several shallow, short breaths. “I did this before,” he says, voice cracking, perilously close to tears. “It was fine then, I don’t get why it’s like this, now.” 

Patrick’s quiet beside him, then the couch shifts and creaks. Jonny flinches when Patrick’s hand lands on his shoulder, warm and heavy. When he risks a blurry glance sideways, he sees that Patrick’s tucked himself away. Patrick grabs the glass of water from the coffee table and holds it out to Jonny. Jonny takes it and drinks, swallowing painfully around the heavy lump in his throat, and hands it back.

“It’s just new, Jon,” Patrick says, watching him carefully. “That’s all.”

“We’ve been fucking for weeks,” Jonny bites out, grinding his teeth together. He cracks his jaw, loosening it deliberately, and drops his weight forward, elbows on his knees. “It shouldn’t be new.”

“You’ve been telling yourself for weeks it didn’t mean anything,” Patrick says with a sigh. “That it didn’t change anything about yourself. Now…” He squeezes Jonny’s shoulder. “It’s okay if it’s a lot.”

Jonny nods silently, hands closing into fists and then releasing as he takes a long, wobbly breath.

“What do you want?” Patrick prods, thumb rubbing at Jonny’s collarbone. “Anything, seriously, even a ride home.”

Jonny takes another breath, then takes stock of himself. His shoulder is a little bruised but not particularly bothering him, his fingers are as stiff as usual. His cock is soft and his hole slippery wet, and he’s naked, sweat cooling on his clammy skin. The leather couch is sticky underneath him, his come streaked across one side of it.

“I want to get off this couch,” Jonny says, then adds, “and I want you to fuck me.”

Patrick blinks at him. “I—you sure?”

“Gotta get back on the horse,” Jonny says, mostly bravado. He slaps Patrick on the thigh and stands up. “Bedroom okay?”

“Yeah, uh,” Patrick says, following him to his feet. “Made the bed this morning and everything.”

“Freak,” Jonny says, jostling Patrick as he heads towards the bedroom.

It’s the slowest sex they’ve had, that’s for sure. Jonny can’t completely chase his nervousness, can’t get right out of his head, even when Patrick slides his fingers back inside and rubs across his prostate. Jonny’s dick twitches on his thigh, but the flutter of his stomach, the race of his thoughts keeps him mostly soft. Patrick tries to get him to flip onto his stomach, but Jonny shakes his head and pulls back his knees. Patrick takes a shallow breath at that and nods, making Jonny wait while he strips naked before settling back between his thighs and pushing carefully inside.

Jonny shifts between waves of pleasure and the vicious tug of his own consciousness. His cock thickens between them, urged on by the careful play of Patrick’s fingers, smoothing the foreskin over the head and sliding underneath in soft circles. He tries to watch Patrick’s movements, from his hand on Jonny’s cock to the bunch and release of his abs as he fucks Jonny in short, steady strokes. There’s a flush spilling down Patrick’s chest that Jonny knows is arousal, not exertion, and Jonny follows it up to Patrick’s lips, red and bitten and pulled tight as he moves.

“You don’t like this?” Jonny says, mouth dry.

“What?” Patrick says.

“You’re not telling me,” Jonny explains, reaching out to stroke along Patrick’s sweaty flank. “You should.”

“I don’t wanna freak you out,” Patrick says, wrinkling his nose.

“Do it anyway,” Jonny says, digging his nails in until Patrick squirms.

“Alright, fine, fine,” Patrick says, hooking an elbow under one of Jonny’s knees and shoving his thigh back. Jonny groans at the change in angle, turning his head to the side, and Patrick gets his other hand on Jonny’s chin, tilting his face back up. “Look at me, Jonny. You want to see, right?”

“I—”

“You like to be seen,” Patrick says, matter-of-fact. “You look good like this, Jonny, and you like to know I think so, yeah?” He slides his fingers down, trailing over Jonny’s throat, over his sternum, and back down to grip at his cock. Jonny swallows, lashes fluttering as he tries to hold Patrick’s gaze. “You wanna watch me watch you take my cock. Knowing I know how much you like it, how it’s the best thing you’ve ever felt.”

It’s the truth. It’s also a lot to feel, all at once. Patrick takes Jonny apart; he always has, with his thick cock and his athletic body and his dirty mouth, but this time Jonny’s looking at it right on, taking Patrick’s dick and seeing it for what it is. This is Patrick, his best friend and a man. Jonny’s letting Patrick fuck him and liking it, getting off on it, begging for it—and it’s _good._

Jonny loves this, he loves everything about it, no ‘despite’ or ‘just because’ or ‘even though.’ He loves each stroke of Patrick’s broad hands, every bared strip of Patrick’s skin, every word in Patrick’s deep voice—and his cock, his fucking perfect cock, driving inside Jonny in this base meeting of their bodies. He tries to take that understanding inside him and make it a piece of himself.

By the time Patrick pushes him over the edge, Jonny’s certain, gasping for air and grasping at every bit of Patrick he can touch to make it last.

 

~

 

Afterwards, Patrick tosses on sweats and a hoodie and insists on making the herbal tea he keeps around expressly for Jonny, because in his completely uneducated opinion linden leaf tastes like piss.

“Have you tasted piss?” Jonny says dubiously, settling against the headboard and cupping the mug between his hands. “And it’s _tilleul_ , not ‘linden leaf’.”

“This is America, Jonny,” Patrick corrects, sitting cross-legged on his side the bed and grabbing his phone off the nightstand. He’s bedraggled and still flushed from fucking Jonny into an incoherent mess; it’s a perfect look on him, except for how he insists on putting on clothes again. “We speak American. And no, I have never tasted piss.”

“No secret golden shower fetish, eh,” Jonny says, smirking at Patrick’s horrified expression. “Good, cause you’d have to find another fuckbuddy for that one.”

“Thanks, I’ll pass,” Patrick says.

Jonny takes a sip of his tea, scalding his tongue, and settles his hands on his knees to wait for it to cool. He watches Patrick’s profile as he chews absently on his hoodie strings and scrolls through facebook. “Are you?” Jonny says, words oddly sticky in his throat. He takes another too-hot sip, grimacing as he swallows.

“Am I what?”

“Uh, looking for other fuckbuddies,” Jonny says.

“For my non-existent piss fetish?” Patrick says, not looking up.

“I meant in general,” Jonny clarifies.

“I wouldn’t be fucking you bare if I was sleeping with other guys,” Patrick says, sliding his gaze sideways to meet Jonny’s. “If you’re worried about that.”

“Nah,” Jonny says. It was too hard to convince Patrick to lose the condoms in the first place for Jonny to worry Patrick’s taking dumb risks. And besides, if he was doing other guys, he’d definitely be careful with _them_. “I don’t want to cockblock you.”

Patrick raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think you can cockblock me by having sex with me, Toews,” he says drily.

“Yeah, but…” Jonny scratches at his neck. “You probably still want to meet other guys. For like,” he does a finger-wave with one hand, thumb hooked into the handle of his mug. “You know. Potential relationships.”

Patrick snorts. “Jonny, I know you don’t really get it, but you have figured out I don’t exactly date, right?”

“But Nico—”

“Fuckbuddy,” Patrick interrupts through gritted teeth. “Dude I had sex with. Guy I boned on the regular. Person I stuck my cock in but did not ever think about bringing flowers, to meet my mom, or as a date anywhere that required a tie.”

“Geez, okay, okay,” Jonny by says, holding up his mug to ward off Patrick’s glare. “I get it, not your boyfriend.”

“I understand you’ve been trying to shove a lot of new ideas into your big concussed brain,” Patrick says with mock patience, “but if you could find room for that one, I’d be really fucking grateful.”

“Done,” Jonny says solemnly.

“Thank you,” Patrick says, settling back into the bed.

“But—”

Patrick drops his phone and stares at him, wide-eyed. “Seriously?”

“No, I’m not—why not?” Jonny asks. “Why don’t you date?”

Patrick makes a sour face and turns back to his phone. “Like you’re so good at it. How many women have you bailed on? Or ignored until they did you a favour and left?”

“Hey,” Jonny protests. “At least I try.”

Patrick ignores him and goes back to leaving disapproving comments on all of Jackie’s spring break photos.

“You’ve got to want to,” Jonny presses.

“Do I?” Patrick says, not looking up. “Is there a rule?”

“I don’t mean—I’m pretty happy not, it’s probably better this way,” Jonny fumbles. “I mostly date cause I’m supposed to, you know? Not because I don’t like being single. But you seem kind of lonely, sometimes.”

Patrick takes a small, sharp breath, and Jonny bites down on his lips, wishing he had shut his fucking mouth for once. But Patrick nods, a short drop of his chin, and says, “It’s just hard.”

“Because you’re gay?”

Patrick shakes his head, thumbing his phone to black and then turning it absently in his hands, flipping it over and over with deft flicks of his fingers. “Nah. But I—shit. Whenever I tried, guys—girls, before, too—would always go on about wanting to get to know the ‘real me,’ or whatever. But they also think they already know me, you know? From the media or from watching the game or whatever.”

“Maybe you should stop picking up fanboys,” Jonny says, only half-kidding.

Patrick slides down the headboard and shrugs, a little shift of his shoulders up around his ears. “Even if they didn’t know me before, they always have this idea of who I should be. And when I’m not like that, they get upset or angry or think I’m hiding or not being honest or whatever.” He licks his lips. “I’m private, I guess. And it’s hard for me to trust anybody enough to show them all of me.”

Jonny thinks about how when Patrick came out, some of the people Patrick had been closest to acted like Patrick had deceived them. Like he’d broken their trust by not coming out to them before. Friends from Buffalo, guys on the team, his parents and sisters—suddenly treating Patrick like he was a stranger to them because of this one thing they hadn’t known before. He thinks about Patrick as a kid, brash and bold on the ice, but drinking too much off of it to try to cover up his own uncertainties, and then how he’d retreated into himself after it blew up in his face one too many times.

Jonny thinks about sitting in his bedroom with all the lights off and the blackout curtains drawn and telling Patrick in a voice torn up from crying in shattered frustration that he was terrified he’d never make it back on the ice, that he’d blown it—and his deepest fear of all, that he’d be nothing if he didn’t have hockey. He thinks about Patrick telling him that he felt like he was nothing but hockey, too, because everything else seemed like a lie. He thinks about how he couldn’t see Patrick’s face in the moment he came out to Jonny, and about how he didn’t need to. He thinks about how they’ve learned together that they aren’t just hockey, that there’s more to them—as individuals but even more, as friends—than points per game and Stanley Cups.

“I’ve seen all of you,” Jonny says, voice echoing strangely in his ears.

“Too bad I can’t date you, then,” Patrick says, slumping right down until his hoodie’s bunched around his head, making him look like a sad balding turtle.

Jonny blinks. “Yeah,” he says, and reaches out to tug the hood right over Patrick’s head, muffling his protesting squawk. “Too bad about that.”

 

~

 

They secure their playoffs chances with three games to go on a win in LA. Jonny breaks the tie on the powerplay when Patrick dishes him the puck in the slot, their first conversion in the last seventeen attempts. He’s so relieved; to score, to put them up, to give them a chance at locking this down, that Patrick’s arm around his neck, tugging him down to yell _that’s hockey, baby_ in his ear, almost knocks him on his ass.

The epiphany that follows a heartbeat later, however, does.

He’s sure there will be some oh-so-funny replays of him knocking his head on the edge of the half-boards as his feet go out from under him, but sitting in the trainers’ room, hoping to god his boys hold the lead for the last six minutes and wondering what the fuck he’s going to do about Patrick, he’s as tightly wound as tape on a stick blade.

His first worry lifts ten minutes later; he can tell they’ve won by the sound of Q’s hoarse victory shouts out in the hall and the upbeat stomp of blades on rubber that follows. The team doctor rolls his eyes at Jonny’s pleading look.

“Go join your boys,” he says, capping his penlight and gesturing to the door. “Nothing wrong with your head, besides the usual.”

“Thanks,” says Jonny, padding sock-footed into the room to the heckling laughter from his team.

“Thought Kaner’d finally done you in,” Duncs says slyly, cuffing him on the shoulder. “Wanted all the glory for himself, at last.”

“He fell over all by himself,” Patrick calls, grinning over his strawberry gatorade, lips wet and pink. “I didn’t even need to help. Perfect crime.”

“Nice job, six,” Shawzy says with a shit-eating grin.

“Hey,” Jonny protests. “I’ll have you know I’m hard to knock off the puck.”

“Only person who can knock Jon over is Jon,” Saader says solemnly.

Jonny sighs and sits down in his stall and watches his team—old stalwarts, budding stars, fresh faces—this raggedy, piecemeal team that’s coming together under his own eyes. They’re not doing it this year, he knows that in his bones even as he tries to always believe it’s possible, but the kernel of something bigger is here. A fourth Cup isn’t unimaginable. Somehow, that realization seems matter-of-fact, distant to the lightning-bolt that hit Jonny out on the ice.

Antti gives him the belt, and Jacob starts up a low chant of “speech, speech, speech” that makes Jonny grumble and haul himself up, feeling melancholy and light all at once.

“Good fight, boys,” he starts over the tap of sticks on stalls. “A bunch of you’ve never been in the playoffs before, so to you, welcome to the NHL. It’s gonna hurt, it’s gonna be the hardest hockey you’ve ever played, and you’re gonna love every fucking second of it.” A loud cheer, and he lets himself grin, satisfaction bubbling up before his stomps down on it and steels his gaze. “We’ve got three more games, and we can still take third if we push it and get a bit of luck, so don’t let up yet. Let’s end the season playing how we’re gonna start the playoffs: all fucking in.”

He finds himself watching Patrick’s steady eyes at the end of his speech, and when he sits back down again neither of them look away. Patrick nods without breaking his gaze and mouths ‘showtime.’ Jonny can’t do anything but grin back helplessly. It isn’t even awkward, and why would it be? Patrick’s got no idea Jonny can’t stop thinking that he doesn’t care if he never wins another Cup, as long as Patrick’s with him—in every way—he’ll be happy.

 

~

 

“Great win, babe,” Patrick says when Jonny opens the door between their rooms that night. “Wanna celebrate?” He’s leaning through the doorway, hands braced on either side of the frame, wearing his suit pants and a ridiculous leer that Jonny wants to kiss off.

Which, well—Jonny can. Patrick would like it, even; kissing’s not Jonny’s favourite activity but Patrick’s mouth makes him want to be better at it. But it won’t mean what he wants it to mean, and somehow that’s worse than not being able to at all.

“I dunno,” Jonny says, glancing back at the rumpled covers on his bed. “I’m not sure I’m up for much.”

Patrick gives him a look of absolute disbelief. “Who are you and what have you done with Jonathan Toews?”

“I can be tired,” Jonny protests feebly, but he steps back to let Patrick into his room.

“Next you’ll be telling me you’re actually into dicks,” Patrick says solemnly, coming up into Jonny’s space and putting his hands on Jonny’s hips, walking him towards the bed. “It’s really a crazy world out there.”

“I’m into you,” Jonny blurts out when his knees hit the bed.

“Think you got that backwards,” Patrick says with a grin, flicking Jonny’s fly open and shoving at his pants. Jonny makes a sound in his throat and grabs the waistband, pushing Patrick away with a solid push to his chest.

Patrick trips backwards, hitting the dresser, his hands coming up between them. “Woah, hey,” he says. “What the fuck?”

Jonny shakes his head, throat clogged up, and looks down to do his pants back up silently. His heart is racing, and not like it usually is when Patrick’s around; he’s clammy and nervous and sick with want and knowledge that it’s not what Patrick wants, not the way Jonny does. He steamrolled Patrick into being his best friend, he can’t do it again and risk Patrick’s patience finally running out.

“Hey, Jon,” Patrick says quietly. “Talk to me here, you’re freaking me out.”

“I—” Jonny lifts his chin and looks at Patrick. He’s in a pale blue dress shirt, sleeves rucked up around his elbows and half-pulled out of his soft grey slacks. His feet are bare on the carpet, toes curling as he rocks up on the balls of his feet before settling back. He looks warm and rumpled and his eyes are slanted with concern, tongue swiping at his lip as he watches Jonny take him in.

“Why can’t we date?” Jonny says, voice a husky whisper.

Patrick frowns. “What?”

“Dating, we—you said ‘too bad we can’t.’”

“Jon—” Patrick starts.

Jonny cuts him off before he can answer, fingers playing with the buttons of his own shirt nervously. “I’ve met your mom, and you’ve met mine,” he says, jaw tensing around the words. “You’re—we go to everything together if I don’t have a date.”

“What are you—”

“I brought you _flowers_ ,” Jonny says, dropping his hands to his side and meeting Patrick’s gaze full-on.

“I thought that was a potted plant,” Patrick says, tipping his head to the side.

Jonny rolls his eyes, the tension trickling down his spine and making him shiver. “I’ll buy you roses, if you want. I’d—fuck, Patrick. I’d buy you a ring if you didn’t have such shitty taste.”

Patrick’s eyebrows leap up so high they almost make it to his hairline. It’s an impressive feat. Jonny winces, sitting down on the bed with a thunk and dropping his face into his hands.

“Sorry,” he says, muffled. Fuck fuck _fuck_ he’s going to ruin this. He’s never had a relationship he was afraid to lose, before. It sucks, it makes his head rush and his stomach roll over. This is Patrick, the one person in the world he can’t stand the idea of losing and when he does it will be 100% his own god damned fault. “I’m coming on too strong.”

Patrick snorts; he’s right in front of Jonny, now. Jonny flinches when a warm hand presses against his shoulder. “I’m not some girl you met in a club.”

“Exactly,” Jonny says miserably.

“Jon,” Patrick says, crouching down and pulling Jonny’s hands from his face. “Okay.”

“Okay what?” Jonny says, twisting his wrists in Patrick’s grip.

“Okay, buy me roses,” Patrick says, the only sign of uncertainty the dip of his Adam's apple as he swallows.

Jonny gapes.

“And you’re right, we probably should pick out our own rings,” Patrick says, and then cracks a grin. “You’ll want some boring piece of titanium.”

Jonny gapes some more.

Patrick curls their hands together between them, folding Jonny’s between his. “Say something.”

“Are you fucking with me?” Jonny demands, words spilling harshly out of his too-tight chest.

“Shit, would I?” Patrick says, soft grin dropping into a worried frown. “I’m not saying I’ve really thought about this, but if you’re there…” he shrugs, thumbs rubbing along the back of Jonny’s hands. “You’re my best friend.”

“Because I wouldn’t leave you alone,” Jonny admits, voice cracking. “You didn’t want me to be.”

Patrick frowns at him. “What are you talking about?” he asks.

“Seabs said—I messed up. When you came out, being all. Aggressive.”

“Oh,” Patrick says, rocking back on his heels. Jonny pulls him in again automatically, and Patrick stands up, turning to sit next to Jonny on the end of the bed. “Yeah, I guess you were…I was going through a lot, and you were doing what you thought was right. There were some days when I thought it was just that—you trying to be a good captain. Saying the right words and putting on the right face for the media. But I haven’t thought that for years, Jon. You never quit, you never stopped being there for me.”

“I love you,” Jonny says, the first time he’s said those words out loud to someone he’s also had sex with. He flushes, neck burning up as he runs his hand over it.

“Like a brother?” Patrick says, and then laughs when Jonny shoots him a horrified look. “Yeah, okay. Like a friend, though.”

“Not like any other friend I have. But it’s not new,” Jonny admits, hunching his shoulders in and staring down at his hands where they’re twisting at the fabric of his pants. “It’s the same as it’s been for years. But if I love you, and I love being around you, and I love having sex with you…” he trails off, digging his teeth into his lip. “Isn’t that enough?”

Patrick meets his eyes, his gaze softening, the turn of his mouth going thoughtful as he takes in Jonny’s terrified determination.

“Listen, I love you too,” he says, and Jonny’s stomach leaps. “Like you said, that’s nothing new. And I trust you. There aren’t a lot of people who I can say both those things about. I thought—after we talked, about why I don’t date? I _did_ think that I could, with you. But I also thought it was impossible.”

“Because—”

“Because you’d figured out you aren’t straight thirty seconds before?” Patrick says, running his hand through his hair. He gives Jonny a rueful glance. “I wasn’t gonna put myself in the position of falling for my straight best friend. I didn’t even want to offer to fuck you, even when you were basically gagging for it—”

“Hey,” Jonny says, except that’s pretty accurate.

“—because I don’t actually have many people in my life who are there for me. Losing you would have been…”

“I get it,” Jonny says, wholeheartedly. "I really, really get that."

Patrick tugs at the back of his hair. “We’ve been friends for a decade," he says, looking pensive. "I knew for sure you’d never thought about it. I wouldn’t have offered to fuck you if I thought it meant anything.”

“So I’m no different from any of your other hook-ups,” Jonny says.

Patrick flinches, pulling his arms in tight and wrapping his hands around his elbows. “I said yes, didn’t I?” he says stiffly.

“Why?” Jonny asks, genuinely bewildered. “If you don’t want it to mean anything…”

“I do,” Patrick says. He pokes at his cheek with his tongue, eyes squeezed shut. “It’s just—I’ve never done this. That doesn’t mean I don’t want somebody to share my life with.”

“Hey,” Jonny says, gentling his voice. He nudges his shoulder against Patrick’s. “I’m pretty terrible at relationships, too. I fuck them up, a lot. I fucked _this_ up, thinking it wasn’t even really sex, let alone…anything more.”

Patrick laughs, a weak huff of breath, and nudges Jonny back. “I _know_ you, Jon. You either know something completely or you can’t imagine it.”

“I’m imagining it now,” Jonny says.

“Exactly,” Patrick says, drawing himself up.

They stare at each other, unblinking. It’s like they’re seeing each other completely for the first time since they met, awkward little shits at thirteen. Jonny feels like he’s letting Patrick slip into spaces in his life he’s kept hidden away from every other person, like a long-lost key slipping into a lock with a perfect click. Maybe Patrick’s been in most of them for years—maybe he’s been in Patrick’s, unnamed and unnoticed but biding their time until the both could open their eyes and see it.

“I really love you,” Jonny says, letting his eyelids shut and then open, wetting his dry eyes. “I feel dumb about missing that.”

Patrick smiles, wide and unfiltered and Jonny wants to throw himself at Patrick and pin him down and never let him go. “If I minded you being kind of dumb sometimes, we’d never have been friends at all,” Patrick says. “Besides, it’s not like I was pining away or anything. You didn’t go anywhere, we just started fucking, too.”

“I could’ve been bringing you flowers, though,” Jonny says with a wobbly grin.

“Uh, you did,” Patrick says. “And you talked me down about the trades and bitched with me about my parents and planned my birthday party and kept me company at Christmas.”

Jonny licks his lips. “So what you’re saying is I’m a really great boyfriend.”

“Well,” Patrick says, relaxing into a smirk. “Don’t get cocky or anything.”

“I’ll show you cocky,” Jonny says, planting a hand on Patrick’s chest. This time he curls his fingers around the fabric and pulls Patrick in, kissing him through Patrick’s laughter and the giddy swell of relief and joy and love spilling up in Jonny’s own throat.

 

~

 

They don’t win the cup, obviously. They don’t even make it out of the first round, though they don’t completely disgrace themselves, either. Jonny’s proud of his team; it’s the first time he’s walked away from a playoff loss feeling better at the end of the series than at the start. There’s so much potential here, and he trusts that they can achieve it.

“You visualizing it?” Patrick says, laughter in his voice as he kicks at Jonny’s Adirondack chair.

“Don’t question my methods,” Jonny says, eyes shut against the brightness of the high summer sun. And a little because he _is_ imagining hoisting that silver beauty above his head. He’ll pass it to Patrick first, next time. “They got me you.”

“Among other things,” Patrick says, still snickering.

Jonny flips his sunglasses down and opens his eyes, turning to Patrick. “Do you want to know what I’m visualizing now?”

“Hm,” Patrick says, tilting his head. “Me fucking you stupid on that ridiculous canopy bed?”

“Nope,” Jonny says, standing up with a groan. He holds out a hand to haul Patrick up, the deck rocking under their feet. “C’mon.”

Patrick follows him through the cottage, blessedly devoid of friends and family until next week. Jonny ditches his sunglasses and peels off his trunks as soon as they hit the master bedroom and goes right for Patrick’s t-shirt, stripping him quickly while Patrick moves for him, amused and uncertain.

“I can undress myself,” Patrick says when Jonny starts in on his fly.

“But you so rarely do,” Jonny complains, shoving down Patrick’s shorts and boxers and letting him step out of them.

“Not all of us are conceited exhibitionists,” Patrick snarks.

Jonny raises his eyebrows and shoves Patrick back onto the bed. “Conceited?” he says, flexing.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t justified,” Patrick says with a leer, trailing his eyes down Jonny’s body. “Get your ass over here.”

“Nope,” Jonny says. “I have a plan. Flip over.”

Patrick gives him a skeptical look but does, sprawling across the bed on his stomach. He’s sunburnt, shoulders peeling, and too thin, but Jonny’s half-hard at the sight of him naked and willing to do what Jonny says, no matter how wary he might be at handing Jonny the ropes.

Jonny sits across the tops of Patrick’s thighs, oil in hand, and runs a hand up Patrick’s spine, burying his fingers in Patrick’s curls and giving them a soft tug. “This okay?”

“What’s ‘this?’” Patrick asks, watching Jonny with one eye over his shoulder.

Jonny unsnaps the bottle and drizzles a line of oil up from the small of Patrick’s back, following the path of his hand, and then sets it aside. “Just a massage, for now.”

“Sure,” Patrick says, pillowing his head on his arms. “Go to town.”

Jonny does. He works carefully up alongside the column of Patrick’s spine, indulging in the warm, soft skin under his hands. Jonny digs his thumbs into the thick knots, and Patrick groans and shifts restlessly, arching into Jonny’s hands. Once Jonny reaches Patrick’s shoulders, he fans his hands out and follows the wings of Patrick’s shoulder blades, the tips of his fingers digging in along their arcs. He rubs gently back down over Patrick’s ribs to the curve of his lower back, hitting the wide muscles that span out to his hips.

Jonny pauses there, palms resting on the beginning of the swell of Patrick’s ass, thumbs pressing into the dips alongside his spine, and says, “Still with me?”

“Ugh,” Patrick says thickly, turning his face from where he’d buried it in his folded arms. “Yeah, keep going.”

Jonny slides his hands down over Patrick’s ass, thumbs meeting above his crease and then digging in, making deep indents in flesh as he pulls Patrick’s cheeks apart. Patrick tenses minutely, then exhales, sinking back into the bed as Jonny holds him open.

“You can, if you want,” Patrick says, muffled.

“I can what?” Jonny asks, letting go and working the heels of his hands into Patrick’s ass instead, a heavy pressure that makes Patrick groan.

“You can fuck me,” Patrick says.

Jonny stills. His cock goes from half-hard to firm and upright in the space of a breath. He leans his weight onto Patrick, then sits back on his heels, resting his hands lightly on Patrick’s hips as his mind races, body thrumming and overwhelming his thoughts.

Patrick’s lovely, stretched out below Jonny, skin pink from the rub of Jonny’s hands and glistening from the oil. He looks smaller like this, naked and summer-lean, narrow hips tucked between Jonny’s knees, broad shoulders curved in. It’d be easy to take him like this, Jonny thinks, and find something familiar to what Jonny used to think of as sex.

Jonny rubs his hands down to the tops of Patrick’s thighs, fine hairs rough to the touch. “I thought you didn’t like being fucked,” he says, pleased when his voice comes out calm and steady. Of all the things he’s done with Patrick—let Patrick do to him—this should be the least intimidating.

“It’s not—you can do it if you want,” Patrick says, nearly too softly for Jonny to hear. “When I’m up for it.”

“And you are now?” Jonny asks, uncertain.

Patrick pushes up onto his elbows and twists back to look at Jonny, bright eyes and flushed cheeks. “Are you?” he asks, a hint of a challenge in his tone.

Jonny looks down and grips Patrick’s cheeks again. He lets the oily tips of his fingers slide in and graze over the tight furl of Patrick’s hole, watching it twitch at the contact. Patrick drops his head back down between his shoulders and pushes at Jonny’s legs with his own. Jonny takes the hint and moves between Patrick’s spread thighs, reaching out for the oil and trickling the warm slippery liquid between Patrick’s cheeks.

Jonny echoes the earlier massage, working in between Patrick’s cheeks in careful strokes. He trails down his crease, circling his hole and then dipping lower, rubbing first gently and then with a heavier pressure as Patrick pushes back into the touch. It’s teasing but precise, the way Jonny avoids the darkened, puckered rim of Patrick’s hole, using the same careful touches that Patrick used to soothe Jonny when they started this thing.

 _The best part_ , Patrick said—so Jonny takes his time, only pressing the ball of his thumb to Patrick’s hole when Patrick goes loose and limp again, breathing into his arms in shuddery, aroused gasps.

“Oh,” Patrick says, hips rocking into the bed, cheeks tightening around Jonny’s thumb.

Jonny waits until he’s unclenched and strokes carefully over his hole, the tense muscle twitching at each pass of his thumb. He keeps at it until Patrick’s trembling, thrusting down on the bed and opening for Jonny’s fingers, then pulls his hands away to slick up his cock. Patrick takes a breath and lets it out slowly, pulling a knee out to the side as Jonny leans in and fits the head of his dick to Patrick’s hole.

That little bit of contact makes Jonny break out in a sheen of sweat, skin prickling as Patrick shifts back against him. Jonny drags his cock down to Patrick’s balls and back up, an intimate stroke down hot skin that has his cock jerking under his grip.

Jesus, Patrick looks good, ass spreading around Jonny’s dick. Jonny could just lean forward, sink the head of his cock inside. It’s nothing Jonny’s been consciously missing—the intimate slide into another person, the rush of pushing in, the power of fucking—but as he pushes against Patrick’s tight, hot hole, feeling the give, Jonny’s gasping for it.

He presses his free hand to the small of Patrick’s back, feeling the tight muscles underneath, and glances up. Patrick’s pulled his arms under himself and is curled in, forehead pressed to the pillow and shoulders hunched. A shiver goes up Jonny’s spine, mixing uneasily with the urgent press of desire to shove his hips forward and drive inside.

“Pat,” Jonny says quietly, letting go of his dick. It bobs up towards his stomach, pink and wet. He puts a hand on the bed and leans up, bowing over Patrick’s back to press a kiss to the arc of a shoulder blade.

Patrick makes a tight noise in his throat and turns his head, tucking his chin into his shoulder. “It’s fine, go for it,” he says throatily. His eyelids are heavy, ears pink and lips bitten red. “I’ve done it before. Lots, even.”

“Yeah?” Jonny says, skimming his palm up Patrick’s rib cage. “When’s the last time you let a guy fuck you?”

Patrick’s lashes dip and he shivers. “Does it matter? I’m letting you.”

Jonny tightens his mouth, pressing his tongue hard against the back of his teeth, and sits back onto his haunches. “Flip over,” he says gruffly.

“Jon…” Patrick says, but he does it, pushing back up into the pillows, his hands rubbing uncertainly at his thighs as he eyes Jonny. He’s most of the way hard, at least, though Jonny knows he can get bigger, stiffer than this. Jonny’s made a point of learning Patrick’s cock since they started doing this for real. It’s not a tool, not a living dildo for Jonny to get off on—it’s part of Patrick. Jonny might still be figuring out what that means, but he’s never been one to walk away from something challenging.

Jonny gives him a half-smile. It’s meant to be reassuring, but by the way Patrick’s eyes flicker he’s not sure he’s managed it. He tucks his hands under Patrick’s knees, pushing them up. “I’m probably going to take you up on that someday,” he says lightly, tucking two fingers back behind Patrick’s balls and sliding them down. Patrick tenses when Jonny reaches his hole and circles it, then relaxes on a forcible exhale, settling back into the pillows deliberately. “But I’ve been thinking a lot lately, about sex.”

“Just lately?” Patrick says, lips twitching as Jonny slaps him on the thigh.

“About sex with _you_ ,” Jonny says, pushing the tip of his index finger in. Patrick clenches down on it, abs going tight. Jonny waits until he’s eased up and goes back to rubbing at Patrick’s ass, thumbing at his balls and in behind, leaving his finger pressed carefully inside. “That good?”

Patrick nods, limbs loosening. “You can put one in, I like that.”

Jonny forces in deeper, working against the push of Patrick’s muscle. “Like that?”

“Yeah,” Patrick says, arching his neck back. He pushes against Jonny’s thigh with his foot. “What were you thinking about, exactly?”

Jonny chews on his lip, throat clogged up, his own skin flushed. “I think I forgot that sex isn’t about...” he says, trailing off as he cups Patrick’s balls with his free hand. He slides his hand up over Patrick’s dick, pressing it into his belly. Patrick tightens around his finger and pushes up on his heels. When he settles, Jonny says, “It’s not about getting off.”

“It isn’t?” Patrick says, breathy and confused.

“It’s not about _me_ getting off,” Jonny elaborates, cheeks hot. He leans in and rubs that flushed skin up the silky smoothness of Patrick’s cock, the head of it catching at the corner of his mouth. He licks at it once and then looks up at Patrick’s face, shivery with a weirdly-edged anticipation even though he’s the one with his finger up Patrick’s ass. “I’ve been kind of single-minded about getting fucked for a while now, and that was okay when it was just—when we were just—”

“I got you,” Patrick says. He slides a hand into Jonny’s hair, smoothing down the nape of his neck. “But I like it. I love fucking you, I love getting you off, man. It’s a trip every time.”

“This is getting me off,” Jonny says honestly, tipping his head to press a kiss to the spongy head of Patrick’s cock. Jonny presses his face into Patrick’s stomach to hide the redness in his cheeks. He can’t do anything about his neck, though, and makes a sharp sound in his throat as Patrick slides his cool fingers around it, stroking at Jonny’s throat.

"Yeah?" Patrick says in that tone that’s somehow so sweet and fucking filthy at the same time. Jonny’s dick jumps at the rough texture of the dirty words. "Getting your big fingers in me? The thought of sucking on my cock?"

"Both," Jonny admits, rubbing his cheek along Patrick's belly. He shuts his eyes, taking a breath, and curls his finger. Patrick's abs clench, and he confesses in a rush, "But mostly just you."

Patrick makes a small sound in his throat. Jonny tilts his chin up to try to see the expression on Patrick's face, but Patrick tightens the grip on Jonny's neck and pushes him back down.

"Suck me," Patrick says roughly, lifting his hips off the bed. Jonny shivers and pushes back against Patrick’s hand. His eyes flutter shut as he mouths at the head of Patrick’s swollen red cock until Patrick’s patience runs out and he digs his nails into the delicate skin over bone behind Jonny's ear.

"Greedy," Jonny says, too low in his chest to be properly teasing. He takes Patrick's cock into his mouth, sliding his lips down the stiff shaft until the head bumps against the back of his throat.

"Oh, boy," Patrick says with a rich laugh. “You want to talk greedy?”

Jonny flushes hot and swallows, awkward with the thickness of Patrick’s cock stretching his lips. He rubs the flat of his tongue along Patrick’s length and then strokes up the frenulum until Patrick’s tensing and releasing under and around him. Jonny tightens his lips and pulls back until Patrick's dick pops out with a wet squelch. He slides his finger out and rubs carefully around Patrick’s hole, soothing little presses that make Patrick shift restlessly under him.

“That’s what I’m trying not to be,” Jonny says seriously, peering up at Patrick. “I want to make this as good for you as it is for me.”

Patrick groans and pulls on the back of his neck until Jonny leans up over him and then down for a kiss. It’s messy and wet and edged with whatever Patrick’s trying to say, something Jonny can feel him swallow down on in the desperation of the kiss. Jonny’s trying to lick the answer out of his mouth when Patrick rolls them over with a solid heave, landing on Jonny’s chest and knocking all the air out of him.

“Uhn,” Jonny groans, pulling his mouth away to suck in a breath. Patrick licks sparks down his neck, kneeing his way between Jonny’s thighs and hauling Jonny’s legs around his waist. Jonny takes the hint and hooks his ankles behind the small of Patrick’s back.

“Oil,” Patrick says hoarsely, biting at the muscle at the base of Jonny’s throat.

“Wha—”

“Nevermind,” Patrick says. He leans to the side and then presses his forehead to Jonny’s shoulder, his back arched as he works a hand between them.

It takes a moment for the drip of oil down Jonny’s crack to register, it’s so warm from the summer heat. He can’t miss the press of Patrick’s cock against his hole, stretching him open and driving inside with the slow, steady push of Patrick’s hips, so perfect Jonny could cry.

“Yes, fuck,” Jonny says on an exhale, thighs tightening as he tries to pull Patrick in faster. His gut goes hot and more sweat breaks out across his chest, under the press of Patrick’s lips as he fills him up. “Yeah, oh, _Pat._ ”

Patrick stays deep inside as he braces himself on his elbows, breathing damply against Jonny’s chest. Jonny tightens his legs around Patrick’s waist and tries to hold still. He wants, he wants—but fuck, he said he was going to think about what Patrick wants.

What Patrick wants is to slide nearly all the way out until the fat flared head is holding Jonny open, his head still bowed over Jonny’s chest, his shoulders trembling minutely. Jonny swallows, fingers clenching and releasing on Patrick’s ribcage, sheened with sweat and oil and so warm to Jonny’s touch. Patrick finally lifts his head and meets Jonny’s eyes, he’s flushed pink, pupils dilated and tongue sliding around his mouth.

Patrick slams in. Jonny cries out, head tipping back on his neck. Patrick does it again, a slow slide out and then a sharp thrust back in that makes Jonny’s cock throb, his body lighting up at the lightning-hot arc of pleasure.

“Getting fucked,” Patrick pants, punctuating his words with solid thrusts that have Jonny choking. “Could never. Feel as good, _fuck—_ ” he bows his head, lips catching on Jonny’s skin, and then picks it up again. “For me as—yeah—as it does for you.”

He slides a palm under Jonny’s back, right down to the base of his spine, spreading his fingers wide and tilting Jonny up. Jonny trembles as Patrick fucks him, pinning him down and angling him up and taking Jonny so good and hard Jonny thinks he’s going to burn right up and be left as nothing but ash on the bedspread.

Patrick’s tongue flicks across Jonny’s lips and then inside. He kisses him deeply and grinds his cock against Jonny’s prostate, circling his hips and drawing Jonny up onto his dick.

“Oh shit I—” Jonny says, tearing his mouth away and digging his heels into Patrick’s back. “Fuck I love you, I love this, want this forever, _Pat,_ ” he babbles, feeling the tight pull and then that rushing tilt that brings his orgasm, shaking under the press of Patrick’s chest and hips and mouth and cock.

Patrick bites down on Jonny’s lip, stopping up the spill of words as they melt into groans. When Jonny’s trembling has stilled to small shivers, he releases Jonny’s mouth and watches Jonny’s face as he starts fucking him again, fast thrusts that make Patrick pant and flush with pleasure and exertion both. Jonny eases back into the bed, hands moving ceaselessly over Patrick’s skin, legs falling open to give Patrick room to work.

“I wish it was this good for you,” Jonny says, hoarse. His cock is flushed and shiny with oil and come, painfully sensitive each time the head drags against the skin of their stomachs.

“You idiot,” Patrick says with a scowl that falls apart as he bows inward and groans. His fingers flex into the meat of Jonny’s ass as he comes deep inside.

Patrick collapses heavily over Jonny, mouthing at Jonny’s shoulder, his ribcage heaving under Jonny’s hands. Jonny wraps an arm around his back and slides his legs down, letting Patrick slip free. Patrick makes a soft sound and settles his weight against Jonny’s chest. It’s too hot, and they’re a sticky mess, but Jonny finds he doesn’t want to move.

Jonny’s cock twitches between them, which—shit, he can’t imagine finding the energy for round two, even if Patrick could. Jonny squeezes reassuringly at Patrick’s hip and then blinks, remembering Patrick’s words. “Why am I an idiot?”

“Mmph,” Patrick says into his collarbone.

Jonny pokes him in the side. Patrick’s so wrung out he doesn’t do more than twitch and then settle again when Jonny tightens his arm. He’d been worked over pretty good before he flipped them over, Jonny figures. Not everyone can have Jonny’s stamina.

“Tell me,” Jonny insists, poking Patrick more firmly.

Patrick sighs and lifts his head to roll his eyes at Jonny from three inches away. “Because this _is_ as good for me as it is for you, you dumbfuck.”

“But you—”

“I don’t have a magic prostate,” Patrick interrupts. “Or a cock that can go three times in a row—”

“Four.” Jonny interrupts, smugly, even though that was one time and Patrick said there was too long a break in the middle for it to count.

“—but everything about this is amazing,” Patrick finishes loudly.

Jonny shuts his mouth. “Yeah?” he says, uncertain.

“I love fucking you,” Patrick says steadily, leaning in to knock their foreheads together. “I love how you’re greedy, I love how easy you are for me, I love how you let me push you. I _love_ this. You want to change this up, let me know, but don’t think I need you to, alright?”

“Okay, geez,” Jonny says, blushing furiously. “The—it was okay though, right? You liked it?”

“Yeah, you did good, babe,” Patrick says, lips quirking. “Maybe next time maybe I’ll let you suck me off with a finger in my ass, okay?”

“I dunno,” Jonny says dubiously, his insides untwisting and letting him relax underneath Patrick’s heavy weight. He puts on an exaggerated frown, tilting his head at Patrick. “Seems like hard work.”

Patrick cracks a full-blown grin, cheeks dimpling up, mouth wide, lines etched deep at the corner of his eyes. “Idiot,” he repeats, so much fondness in his voice that Jonny has to pull him back in. Patrick pushes his face into Jonny’s neck, lips moving against skin. “My idiot.”

Funny how that one word makes all the difference, Jonny thinks, and holds on tight.

 

~

**Author's Note:**

> I am on [tumblr](http://demotu.tumblr.com)!


End file.
